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CHRISTIANITY AND 
THE NEW AGE 



BY 

GEORGE PRESTON MAINS 




THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI 






9«" 



Copyright, 1914* b f 
GEORGE P. MAINS 



SEP 24 1914 



©C1.A379640 



TO MY WIFE, WHOSE ARTISTIC TASTE LENDS 
CHARM TO MY HOME 5 WHOSE HABITUAL 
CHEERFULNESS MAKES MY HOME LIFE RADI- 
ANT ; AND WHOSE WOMANLY LOVE AND 
LOYALTY HEARTEN ME FOR ALL TOILS: 
THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 



CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Preface ix 

PART FIRST 
The Book's Portal 

I. The Incomprehensible Christ 5 

PART SECOND 
Ideal Versus Achievement • 

II. The Church: The Church Urban and Rural 23 

III. The Church and the Poor 43 

PART THIRD 
Factors of Limitation 

IV. Rational Readjustments , v 57 

V. Biblical Criticism 0t . 81 

VI. Secularized Education ' 101 

VII. Educated Leadership 119 

VIII. Plutocracy 1 135 

IX. Socialism 157 

PART FOURTH 
Factors Prophetic 

X. Christianity's Leavening Life 183 

XI. Christian Missions 211 

XII. The Inworking God 229 

XIII. The Divineness of Man 245 

XIV. Modern Prophets 265 

XV. Prophetic Vistas 287 

XVI. The Abiding Church 325 

Bibliography 345 



vn 



PREFACE 

While I could covet for this book a wide welcome, 
an interdenominational welcome, from both the min- 
istry and the laity, in its preparation I have had not 
less in mind the lay than the ministerial reader. I have 
been led, sanely and constructively I hope, to discuss 
many phases of modern fact and thought, and in my 
various processes I think it could be only helpful if a 
large constituency of thinking laymen were to keep 
me company. I do not for a moment assume that all 
such readers would give consent to all the positions 
of the book, but it is my confidence that all would re- 
ceive some benefit; and it might not be of least value 
that the attention of readers should be newly challenged 
at the very points, if any, which seem to awaken dissent. 

The theme of this volume is — the Church? Yes; but 
something far other and more. The central thought 
around which the entire discussion revolves is — the 
world-kingdom of Jesus Christ. I have elected for the 
title of the book, as covering perhaps its conception 
more perfectly than any other phrasing, this — Chris- 
tianity and the New Age. 

This title is exceedingly broad — indeed, "broader than 
the measure of man's mind." Any discussion of such 
a subject must prove necessarily and inevitably frag- 
mentary — how fragmentary can be appreciated by 
none so keenly as by those who have seriously attempted 



x PREFACE 

a study of Christianity in its relations to present world- 
movements. 

One who has made a tour of the world has seen much. 
He has felt the swell of measureless seas, has had a vision 
of vast landscapes, has looked upon mighty mountains 
lakes, and rivers; he has visited the chief capitals, has 
looked upon the most famed creations of genius; he 
has been indescribably impressed with the universality 
of man's religiousness as witnessed by the many faiths, 
both ancient and those of more recent origin, which 
are diversely represented in the civilizations; he has 
observed with greatest interest the diverse languages, 
literatures, art, social customs, laws, governments va- 
riously characteristic of all the human world. 

But no one realizes better than this discerning traveler 
that vast and intrinsically interesting world-territories 
still lie outside the range of his personal observation 
and exploration. As I lay down my pen with the con- 
cluding chapters of this book, I have a not dissimilar 
feeling. I have attempted to touch, helpfully as I could 
devoutly hope, a few great features of what is really 
an exhaustless theme. 

My studies as herein set forth have proven to me 
most richly rewarding. They have brought to me an 
expanding vision, an inspirational quickening of faith, 
great confirmation of fundamental Christian conviction, 
a magnified confidence and assurance that Christianity 
is the one supreme and all-prophetic factor of human 
history. 

It is impossible for me to be pessimistic with reference 
to the final outcome of Christianity. 



PREFACE xi 

God's in his heaven: 
All's right with the world. 

If this little couplet of Browning, so far as the present 
is concerned, is not real history, it is a sure prophecy 
of what is to be. 

The several chapters of this book, while prepared 
with reference to due sequence of thought, may, for 
the most numbers, each be read as a distinct essay 
upon the subject which it discusses. The sources of 
suggestion from which this volume has come are many. 
Very much of the substance has been for so long my 
own intellectual property, as to make it impossible 
for me to indicate sources. At the close of the volume 
will be found a chapter of Bibliography. All works 
referred to in this list have been more or less consulted 
in my preparation. 

I am especially indebted to Dr. David G. Downey, 
official Book Editor, and to Dr. Henry C. Jennings, 
General Publishing Agent, of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, for their critical reading of the manuscript, 
and for valuable suggestions as to its final form. 

In committing this work to the public, if I may ever 
know that to its readers it has brought a tithe of the 
benefit with which its preparation has enriched me, 
I shall find reason in such knowledge for grateful satis- 
faction. 

New York, August, 19 14. 



PART FIRST 
THE BOOK'S PORTAL 



THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE CHRIST 



Jesus! the name high over all, 

In hell, or earth, or sky; 
Angels and men before it fall, 

And devils fear and fly. 

Christus Redemptor has, with atoning sacrifice, brought forgiveness 
of sins to the great company of the redeemed. Christus Consolator has 
stanched the tears of the world's sorrow and filled the hearts of the 
afflicted and the wronged with immortal hope. Christus Consummator 
will establish the kingdom of God in the hearts of men and transform 
human society at last into an order of final perfection. — David J. 
Hill, LL.D. 

Humanity is driving stormily on its perilous way, and no man knows 
from history or observation what the end will be. If we really think 
about the subject, the only reassuring thing is the optimistic teaching 
of Jesus Christ based on his revelation of God. If God indeed be such 
as Jesus reported, if he be our God and Father, if his name is Love, if 
he has made man for immortal life and blessedness with himself, then, 
of course, all must be right with the world, and the end must be divine. 
But on any other view, the only preservation against deep anxiety, if 
not despair, is simply not to think. The God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ can be trusted even when we do not understand him; but 
if we seek to know God apart from his Son, we are at the beginning of 
confusion and sorrow. — Borden P. Bowne, LL.D. 



CHAPTER I 

THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE CHRIST 

However inadequately, or with what failure of 
directness, the engrossing themes discussed in this and 
subsequent chapters may be treated, I could wish it 
understood from the first that this book is written in 
no spirit of pessimism. While seeking frankly to assess 
the obverse facts and conditions in current Christian 
history, I find neither in my fears nor in the outlook 
place for any note of despair. 

This world belongs to God, and finally its last and 
apparently most forbidding province will come under 
his scepter. The influence and power of Christianity 
alone will bring to pass this sublime consummation. 
Christianity, with Christ at its center, its ever-inspiring 
and energizing life, is something immeasurably larger, 
greater, and more divine than the world has yet come 
to apprehend. Its larger meaning and possibilities are 
one thing; its various institutions, however time-honored, 
which have been associated with its life, are quite an- 
other thing. It is a common habit, and in large measure 
an infirmity, of the human mind to lay vital stress upon 
institutions and creeds which have attached them- 
selves as the exponents and explanation of the great 
movements of history. Thus, in the divinest of all 
historic movements, Christianity itself, there have grown 
up great institutions, creeds, and usages. These in 

5 



6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

turn have taken an enormous hold upon the imagination, 
faith, veneration, and affection of the believing Chris- 
tian world. These various minor factors have in the 
lives of very many so come into the foreground of their 
thought as to have a meaning well-nigh synonymous 
with Christianity itself. But this view makes the 
fatal mistake of putting form, the ecclesiastical organism, 
in place of the vitalizing spirit of Christianity itself. 

All institutions, creeds, and usages are but vehicles, 
instruments. Christ alone is the life of his Church. 
He alone is worthy to command our worship and love. 
Christ is the Son of God. He is this in the preeminent 
sense; in a sense which is not true of any and all other 
beings. He is the one revealer of God to man. He 
is equally the revealer to man of what God would have 
man be, of what God purposes that he shall be. Con- 
cerning the supreme problems of the redemption and 
salvation of humanity, problems with which unlimited 
divinity alone can deal, Christ furnishes the only solu- 
tion. For the mission of the world's redemption from 
evil, for the final bringing of man to his divinest possi- 
bilities, Christ is invested with all authority, having 
at command all the powers of the moral universe. It 
would, then, be treason to assume or to fear that he 
could finally fail in his work. Institutions, creeds, 
customs, may be superseded, but his kingdom shall 
move on, waxing stronger until its final consummation. 

While the name of Christ is acknowledged as the 
greatest of names, there is proof abundant that as yet 
the world has very little comprehended his greatness. 
He is the one transcendent and indescribable Personality 



THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE CHRIST 7 

of History. The four literary fragments 1 called the 
Gospels are, as sources of information concerning his 
real character and teaching, of far greater value than 
all the learned and critical lives of him which have been 
written in recent times. But a careful reading of the 
Gospels themselves will impress us that their authors 
in seeking to picture the Christ were struggling with 
an impossible task. The men originally companioned 
with Christ only very imperfectly understood him. 
Their feeling toward him was one of wonder and per- 
plexity, mingled at times with a sense of overwhelming 
admiration and love. In assessing this estimate allow- 
ance is to be made for the spiritual illumination which 
rested upon these men at Pentecost and afterward. 
But the Spirit in his mission as inspirer has to reckon 
with the limitations of human character. These early 
companions and chroniclers of Christ when in possession 
of the largest measure of inspiration possible to them, 
were still men of marked limitations. The only rational 
accounting for the matchless character glimpsed to us 
in the four Gospels is that a transcendent Being, one 
who had come forth from God, and whose glory they 
beheld, companioned himself with men. There was 
that about Jesus Christ which was immeasurably larger 
and more glorious than any who knew him best were 
able to comprehend. He was to them inexpressible. 
As Schweitzer says, "They were dealing with the Niagara 
force of an indescribable character." 

Saint Paul, some of whose writings are the oldest 



1 "Fragments" in the sense that they record but a mere fraction of the words and deeds 
of Jesus. See John 21. 25. 



8 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

in the New Testament, was a man rarely gifted, and 
of deepest spiritual insight. His own transformed life 
was a miracle. His experience of Christ's revelation 
in his life was an event so overwhelming to his con- 
sciousness that its marvel never lessened upon his view. 
There is no more impressive psychological chapter in 
Christian history than that which records the con- 
version and the after apostolic life of Saul of Tarsus. 
No spiritual experience was ever more vivid than his. 
No intellect more mighty than his ever struggled with 
the problems of the incarnation. As a witness to the 
transforming power and inspiring hopes of Christ's 
gospel, none greater than Saint Paul has ever arisen. 
But as a theologian even this greatest of the apostles 
was never able fully to emancipate himself from the 
habits of his Jewish training, nor from the impressions 
of his Roman citizenship. Saint Paul may well hold 
undisputed the first place among historic Christians. 
But even he, when he stood in the presence of Christ, 
felt that he knew only in part. To him the very love 
of Christ was something passing knowledge. In Christ 
he felt that there were heights and depths and 
lengths and breadths which he had never explored. 
Paul fairly burdens all language at his command in 
extolling Christ's dominion on earth, in heaven, and 
for eternity. His imagination was continually haunted 
by qualities ineffable and inexpressible inhering in his 
Lord. He says, "And without controversy" — by com- 
mon consent, without debate — it is to be admitted by 
all, and in this he includes himself, that "great is the 
mystery of Godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, 



THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE CHRIST 9 

justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the 
Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into 
glory." Paul, with all his wealth of revelation, would 
be the last man to claim exhaustive knowledge of Jesus 
Christ. 

In the period of the Church Fathers, beginning with 
the origin of the Apostles' Creed, whenever that was, 
and including Augustine, a vastly exhaustive study was 
given to the subject of the Trinity and to the person 
of Christ. Lessing, the brilliant rationalist, the man 
whom Macaulay declared to be "beyond dispute the 
first critic in Europe," in speaking of the patristic develop- 
ment of orthodox Christ ology, confessed that he knew 
"nothing in the world in which human ingenuity showed 
and exercised itself in a greater manner." When the 
Athanasian, really the Augustinian, creed reached sub- 
stantially its final form, three great ecumenical councils 
had struggled with and pronounced upon the doctrinal 
problems of Christ and his relations to the Trinity. 
The Athanasian creed, studied article by article, and sen- 
tence by sentence, reveals an ingenuity and penetration 
worthy of the greatest thought; and probably no abler 
thought was ever brought to bear upon any abstruse sub- 
ject than that which wrought in the making of this creed. 

Athanasius, Saint Paul excepted, was the ablest man 
whom the Christian Church had produced up to his 
time. The creed bearing his name undoubtedly re- 
flected his views upon the great subject of the Trinity 
and the relations of Christ thereto. For a long time 
it was assumed that he was the author of this creed. 
But a more critical study of the history has shown beyond 



io CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

doubt that in its final shaping Augustine had more to 
do than had Athanasius. 

Augustine was the greatest Christian mind of his 
century. He was a foremost philosopher. He knew 
experimentally much about the world on its evil side. 
His conversion to Christianity seems little less miraculous 
than that of Saint Paul. His essential greatness is 
indicated by the fact that his utterances dominated the 
theology of the Christian, especially the Western, Church 
for twelve centuries. 

It is evident that the historic creeds were born in the 
throes of great thought. It would be unseemly for 
any single mind to utter itself in quarrelsome dissent 
from pronouncements which for many ages have com- 
manded for themselves a reverent consensus of Christian 
faith. These creeds express as perfectly as it is possible 
for the human intellect to do the measurable facts con- 
cerning the divine Trinity, and the status of Jesus Christ 
in his relation thereto. As historic crystallizations of 
orthodoxy they have doubtless served a great purpose 
in preserving the fundamentals of a common Christian 
faith, and in giving to the Church familiarity with noble 
forms of reverent belief. 

But, when all acknowledgment by the Church, is 
intelligently made for these monumental products of 
the great minds of its early history, it still remains to 
be said that not all the creeds combined have taken 
the measurement of Jesus Christ. There is a divinity 
a transcendency, an infinite indefinable something in 
his character that forever refuses reduction to the meas- 
urements of human thought. Applying the words of 



THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE CHRIST n 

Loofs to Christ, we may with him say, "It is absolutely 
impossible for our reason to comprehend God: his 
eternity, his creation and maintenance of all things, 
his omnipotence and omniscience are absolutely incom- 
prehensible for us." 1 

More than eighteen centuries lie between us and the 
New Testament writers. These centuries have made 
great history. Christ is still alive. He is now vastly 
more alive, immeasurably more regnant in human thought, 
than in any preceding time. Within these centuries 
civilizations, religions, institutions, philosophies, systems 
of learning have perished. Christ has survived them all. 
Within these centuries new civilizations, new philosophies, 
new sciences, new inventions, new learning have changed 
the face of the world, have vastly increased human 
knowledge, have given new direction to thought and 
conduct. Yet in all this unmeasured revolution, in 
all the mighty progress of knowledge and enlighten- 
ment, Christ has received steady and increasing exalta- 
tion in the world's thought and affairs. There is no 
history parallel to this, none so wondrous. 

It is worthy of special emphasis that within the last 
seventy-five years the most acute thought has been 
focused upon Jesus Christ. The keenest, most search- 
ing and relentless processes of analysis have been applied 
to his history and character. These years have been 
preeminently the period of scientific methods. In this 
time science has placed at the command of learning 
the most effective appliances for the ascertainment of 
truth. It is safe to say that not a single method, not 

1 Dr. Friedrich Loofs, What Is the Truth about Jesus Christ? 



i2 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

a single test which the new learning has made available 
has been neglected in the critical scrutiny that has 
been centered upon Jesus Christ. No subject has 
received more intense, more capable, or more continuous 
study than has been given to this supreme character 
of the New Testament. If Lessing were living to-day, 
he might, in review of the recent thought which has 
been devoted to Jesus, parallel his tribute to that earlier 
period of thought, and say again, ' 'There is nothing 
in the world in which human ingenuity shows and ex- 
presses itself in a greater manner." 

But if we look at Christ to-day, in the present stage 
of ever-living discussion that centers about him — a dis- 
cussion that promises never to lessen — we discover that 
his widening supremacy over the world's thought is 
increasingly acknowledged. In the first half of the 
last century Straus published his Life of Christ. It 
came to Christian scholarship as a brilliant and stunning 
surprise. It was a herald of consternation and fear 
to the world of Christian thought. Christian scholars 
were not prepared for the onslaught, and for a time 
they considered the phenomenon with bated breath. 
But Strauss himself, a brilliant scholar and intellectually 
great, lived to a dreary and disappointed old age. And 
when his life was sere and spent he himself uttered the 
bitter lamentation over his rationalistic Life of Christ 
that it was a thing which had ''utterly gone to leaves." 

Renan, scholarly, with great insight, brilliantly rhe- 
torical, wrote his Life of Christ with a distinct inten- 
tion to rob him of divinity. To Renan' s credit it must 
be said that the more deeply he studied the character 



THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE CHRIST 13 

of his subject, the more was he himself captivated by- 
its ineffable beauties. He pays eulogies to Christ which 
would seem properly rendered only to divinity. He 
says: "He is the common honor of all who share a com- 
mon humanity. His glory does not even consist in 
being relegated out of history; we render him a truer 
worship in showing that all history is incomprehensible 
without him." Again he says: "He founded that high 
spiritualism which for centuries has filled souls with 
joy in the midst of this vale of tears. . . . Thanks 
to Jesus, the dullest existence, that most absorbed by 
sad or humiliating duties, has had its glimpse of heaven. 
In our busy civilizations the remembrance of the free 
life of Galilee has been like perfume from another world, 
like the 'dew of Hermon,' which has prevented drouth 
and barrenness from entirely invading the field of God." 
He finally closes his book with this statement: "What- 
ever may be the unexpected phenomena of the future, 
Jesus will not be surpassed. His worship will constantly 
renew its youth, the tale of his life will cause ceaseless 
tears, his sufferings will soften the best hearts; all the 
ages will proclaim that, among the sons of men, there 
is none born who is greater than Jesus." The great 
Frenchman is dead. His book rests on the shelves of 
the libraries. His attack on Jesus, an attack in which 
he yields every tribute of admiration, utterly failed of 
its purpose. Renan with all his genius failed because 
he was dealing falsely with a Personality whose divine 
largeness he failed to apprehend. Jesus, in the mean- 
time, has moved forward on his triumphal way with 
no scath upon his garments, no hurt upon his person. 



i 4 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

Germany is a nation representing great scholarship. 
And German scholarship has undertaken to the last 
degree to find a purely rational status for the person 
and history of Jesus Christ. Perhaps no single volume 
gives a better survey of attempts in this field than Albert 
Schweitzer's Quest of the Historical Jesus. This is a 
great book. In its preface the author says: "When, 
at some future day, our period of civilization shall 
lie, closed and completed, before the eyes of later genera- 
tions, German theology will stand out as a great, a 
unique phenomenon in the mental and spiritual life 
of our time. For nowhere save in the German temper- 
ament can there be found in the same perfection the 
living complex of conditions and factors — of philosophic 
thought, critical acumen, historic insight, and religious 
feeling — without which no deep theology is possible. 
And the greatest achievement of German theology is 
the critical investigation of the life of Christ/ ' 

This book traces the processes of German critical 
thought toward Christ from Reimarus, born in 1694, 
to William Wrede, who died in 1907. It is of great 
interest carefully to note the varying views of Christ 
which have been put forth by the long line — now all 
dead — of German scholars. All of these men were 
plodders, many of them brilliant, some of them friends, 
others enemies of evangelical Christianity. Their views 
were often diverse, the conclusions of one frequently 
in direct conflict with those of another. After reading 
it from cover to cover, one lays down this full, rich 
volume with the feeling that not all of these thinkers 
combined have said the last word about Jesus the Christ, 



THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE CHRIST 15 

not all of them together have given a complete state- 
ment of his mission, nor the adequate picture of his 
character. But Christ none the less lives, and still 
challenges the fresh scrutiny of both scholar and genius. 

The spirit of the hostile critic was never more virulent 
nor determined than now. There are those, and they 
will probably have their successors for indefinite time 
to come, some of them in command of great resources, 
who seek, and who will continue to seek, to destroy 
the very historicity of Jesus Christ, and thus to destroy 
the foundations of Christianity itself. These men are 
not greatly to be feared. They cannot succeed. They 
are like those who would beat the stars out of the sky. 
Christ is infinitely beyond them. When they have done 
their worst, it will be but as the stout sea wave which 
utterly shatters itself against the immovable rock. The 
immeasurableness, the incomprehensibleness, of Jesus 
Christ are asserted in the fact that no progress ever 
surpasses him. In the complexities of a growing civiliza- 
tion new human needs are continuously developing, 
and old needs are coming into new expression and ex- 
pansion. Old philosophies, creeds, and traditions are 
outworn. Not so with Jesus. There is no social or 
moral want made prominent by the world's growing 
knowledge and experience the satisfaction of which is 
not discoverable in his gospel. 

Under the title, "The Modern Quest for a Religion," 1 
Winston Churchill has recently published a most sug- 
gestive article. After vividly picturing the awakened 
sense of the age to some great working energy of the 

1 The Century Magazine, December, 1913. 



1 6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

times, an energy not material but expressing itself in 
the "inarticulate language of the people," and having 
testified to the spiritual hunger widely felt in human 
society, he proceeds to delineate the qualities which 
should characterize the kind of religion most perfectly 
adapted to the needs of the times. He then shows that 
all that could be hoped for in the most perfect religion 
for the meeting of human wants is already fully sup- 
plied in Jesus Christ. What is the meaning of that 
tremendous awakening in modern life of the new sense 
of human brotherhood, and the growing conviction 
that the highest life possible to any man is the life of 
unselfish service for his fellows? It all means that a 
new view of Christ's spirit and mission is entering into 
the vision of the age. This is not to say that Christ 
himself grows, but that as man grows in spiritual knowl- 
edge and illumination, so more and more are Christ's 
illimitable glories humanly apprehended. As the starry 
immensities have ever expanded upon man's growing 
knowledge, so in the moral world will the glories of 
Christ multiply upon the spiritual vision of the race. 
As the most powerful telescope yet invented reveals only 
the edges of the universe, so the experience of the most 
perfect saints has as yet only begun to apprehend his 
exhaustless and saving wealth. God's scheme for the 
world is one calling for unlimited growth for man — 
growth in the knowledge of material things, growth in 
spiritual attainment and apprehension; but man will 
never grow to such stature of perfection as not to see 
in Jesus Christ a Being immeasurably transcendent to 
himself. 



THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE CHRIST 17 

Confidence in the final success of Christ's kingdom 
in this world may be supreme. He has undertaken 
the world's redemption. His credentials for this mission 
are divine. All resources at the command of heaven 
are his. He will not fail. If either is seriously on 
trial before this age, it is clearly the Church and not 
Christ. The forms and methods of organized Chris- 
tianity may need to be largely revised in order to best 
serve the interests of the Kingdom. Before closing 
this discussion we shall probably see much need for 
this. Revision, expansion, and new adaptations are a 
necessity to any organism designed for perpetual use- 
fulness. The expanding mission of the Spirit in the 
world will bring about these modifications in the organic 
Church. In the meantime the Christian disciple may 
move forward in his work in the sublime confidence 
that comes from the consciousness of personal fellow- 
ship with the great Master. Jesus Christ is known 
by his own. The Christ of the Gospels is best appre- 
hended only by those in whose hearts he personally 
dwells. What scholarship can never discover, what 
philosophy can never explain, is apprehended and realized 
in the faith and experience of the Christian life. Christ 
does reveal himself in the lives of those who love and 
obey him. This is the reason why no hostile criticism 
can ever understand or disarm him. He lives, attesting 
his own divinity, in the hearts of growing millions whose 
love for him is such that if needs be they could die for 
him. Schweitzer, in the final summary of his book, 
says: "The abiding and eternal in Jesus is absolutely 
independent of historical knowledge and can only be 



1 8 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

understood by contact with his spirit, which is still at 
work in the world. In proportion as we have the spirit 
of Jesus we have the true knowledge of Jesus." 

Hofmann's great pictures of the Christ appeal in a 
marked way to universal favor. A personal friend, 
Dr. Henry H. Meyer, once made a visit to Hofmann 
at his summer home in the Saxon Alps. To his query 
as to the secret of Hofmann's inspiration in painting 
the pictures of Christ, the old man, then over eighty 
years of age, said: "If you ask for the testimony of my 
faith, I must answer that the matter of religious faith 
is not so simple for the thoughtful man to-day. I do 
not know the conditions in your country, but here in 
Germany the thinking man, who looks about him in 
an earnest quest for religious truth, and notes the social 
and church conditions as they really are, cannot at 
times escape asking himself the question, 'Does the 
Christian Church to-day offer to the people what they 
have a right to expect of it?' There also rises the deeper 
question, 'Does the religion of Jesus Christ really meet 
the deepest needs of the human heart?' But, when I 
turn away from these questionings and read again the 
story of his life, and contemplate again his teachings, 
it is as though I were lifted from the valley to the broad 
table-land, and from thence to successive mountain 
heights, until I stand at last upon the highest peak, 
above the clouds, where all is clear and radiant with 
sunlight; and," he added, "it has been during these 
mountaintop experiences that I have seemed to behold 
his face and have attempted to paint his likeness." 



PART SECOND 
IDEAL VERSUS ACHIEVEMENT 



19 



THE CHURCH: THE CHURCH URBAN AND 

RURAL 



2t 



At the beginning of the Divine-human Book our first glimpse of man 
is in a garden. It is a paradise of perfect beauty, of perfect simplicity, 
of perfect innocence. It is a paradise of virtue unfallen because of virtue 
untried. We turn to the close of the Book, and there we catch another 
glimpse of man in a perfect estate. We see in this vision not the beauty 
of innocence, but the beauty of holiness. We see not the unstable peace 
of virtue untried, but the established peace of virtue victorious. In the 
first picture we see individualistic man; in the second we see socialized 
man. In the first we see man unfallen, sustaining right relations to 
his Creator. In the second we see man redeemed, sustaining right rela- 
tions to God and to his fellows. The story of this marvelous human 
drama begins in the country; its denouement is in the city. The crown 
and consummation of our civilization — the full coming of the kingdom 
of God on earth — is typified not by a garden, but by a city — a holy city 
— into which shall enter nothing unclean and nothing that maketh a 
lie. — Dr. Josiah Strong. 

There is no single factor in the advancement of righteousness and 
civilization which can be more influential and effective than the country 
church. — Gifford Pinchot. 

In all parts of the United States country life is furnished with 
churches. . . . These religious societies hold the key to the problem of 
country life. If they oppose modern socialized ideals in the country, 
these ideals cannot penetrate the country. If the Church undertakes 
constructive social service in the country, the task will be done. The 
Church can oppose effectively; it can support efficiently. This situation 
lays a vast responsibility upon all Christian Churches, especially upon 
those who have an educated ministry; for the future development of 
the country community as a good place in which to live depends upon 
the country church. — Dr. Warren H. Wilson. 



22 



CHAPTER II 

THE CHURCH: THE CHURCH URBAN AND RURAL 

There is a widely prevalent view that ecclesiastical 
Christianity is somehow much out of joint with the 
times; that it is seriously failing in its required function 
for the enlargement of the Kingdom. This view is 
grave. It merits honest, searching, and fearless exam- 
ination. Is the view correct? Is the Church really 
a declining institution, something like a setting sun, 
long since having passed the zenith, and soon to sink 
down into night and darkness? If not, what is the 
real truth in the case? Is it possible that Christianity, 
even in the very presence of our uncomprehending vision, 
is clothing itself with new forms of life? Do we need 
anew viewpoint in order to test the radiance of its 
beauty, the majesty of its strength, the stride of its 
triumphs ? 

Many facts, statistics, studied by themselves alone, 
undoubtedly furnish food for pessimism. These facts 
should not be sidetracked. Whatever truth they give 
us, whatever lessons they convey, should be measured 
fully for what they are worth. Truth is truth, whether 
it be for or against our cherished preferences. As Mr. 
Lincoln said during the war, "It is not the question 
whether the Lord is on our side, but whether we are 
on the Lord's side." Whatever our views, traditions, 
or convictions, we shall finally make a safe landing 

23 



24 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

only as we are found squarely in line with the truth. 
The subject of our inquiry is large and vital. 

Ideals for which an institution stands furnish the 
severest standards of measurement as to the relative 
success or failure of the institution itself. Christian 
ideals furnish the standard by which the real successes 
or failures of the Church itself may best be measured. 
Judged from this standpoint, what report must be given? 
We are in the twentieth century of Christian history. 
The leaven of Christ's kingdom has long been working 
in civilization. Let it be fully credited that Christianity 
has achieved very great, even most divine, results in 
the world. Still a great question remains. Christianity 
has had a long history. At its command have been 
placed unmeasured resources. In its life have inhered 
vast potentialities. Central to its creed has been the 
faith of an unfailing divine guidance and the ever-present 
inspiration of the Holy Spirit in its life. All this makes 
supreme the question whether Christianity should not 
already have achieved, and should not now be achieving, 
immeasurably more than seems to be reported in the 
life of the Church. 

I 

Take a most casual survey of the American republic. 
This, of all lands, would seem to present the most favor- 
able conditions for the unimpeded progress and triumph 
of Christianity. The virgin soil of America, especially 
in New England, was colonized by a God-fearing people 
— a people who sought refuge from the tyrannies of the 
Old World that they might build here a nation founded 
on Christian morality and characterized by religious 



THE CHURCH URBAN AND RURAL 25 

freedom. In the long period of the nation's develop- 
ment, as State after State has been added to the national 
domain, distinct principles of Christian morality have 
found expression in the constitution of nearly every 
State. While the laws are framed to support the largest 
toleration and freedom of religious worship, yet far 
more than by implication our underlying national and 
State constitutions recognize this as a Christian govern- 
ment. 

The facts to be emphasized are that Christian forces 
originally preempted this territory, and the laws of 
the land are all so shaped as to foster and protect the 
worship and institutions of Christianity. The ministry 
of the American Churches, representing the highest 
character, learning, and influence, have justly held a 
foremost rank in the moral citizenship of the nation. 
On the whole, it may be said that no other single force 
in the nation has wielded a greater or more wholesome 
intellectual and moral influence upon the people at 
large than has emanated from the Christian ministry. 
The Church, through the agencies of its presses and 
schools, has had great opportunity to mold the moral 
life of the people. 

In any survey it is but fair that account should be 
taken of the immense immigration of alien peoples into 
American life. But, even so, the question comes back: 
"Why has not American Christianity shown itself vigor- 
ous enough to spiritually transform and assimilate these 
peoples?" Christianity is a missionary religion, and it 
would seem that there ought to be no place in the world 
where its power to attract and to evangelize alien races 



26 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

should be so efficient as under its own civilization and 
in the midst of its own institutions. 

What are the general facts as to the status of the 
Christian Church in the American republic? By most 
expert authorities the conclusion is gravely reached 
that vast numbers in the population of the country 
are unchurched. 1 American Protestantism is divided 
into one hundred and sixty-four distinct denominations. 
This alone is a disgraceful chapter in our religious his- 
tory. It tells the story of dissension and cleavages 
founded on causes entirely unworthy of the essential 
spirit of Christianity. It suggests the picture of what 
ought to be a solid and efficient army divided into small 
and rival camps, many of them magnifying some petty 
shibboleth, each claiming a monopolistic defense of 
orthodoxy, and each in the meantime in an attitude 
inoperative toward the larger unity of life and pur- 
pose in which alone Christianity can move forward to 
the moral conquest of the world. This spectacle of a 
multiplied and petty denominationalism is nothing less 
than a reproach to American Protestantism. From the 
standpoint of business efficiency, it not only means 
inherent weakness, but is so alien to the spirit character- 
izing the great and united movements of the day as to 
excite a sense of contempt and disgust in the minds 
of clear and broad-thinking men. The whole thing 
is a most damaging advertisement for Christianity in 
both Christian and pagan lands. 

Another fact of ill-prophecy is, that while the rate of 
growth in church membership in the nineteenth century 

ijosiah Strong, Social Progress, 1906, p. 253*. also New Cyclopedia of Reform, p. 224. 



THE CHURCH URBAN AND RURAL 27 

was relatively greater than that of population as a whole, 
that process has been reversed in the recent years, the 
rate of increase of church membership falling behind 
that of the population. Hand in hand with the relative 
decrease of growth in church membership there has 
been a corresponding diminution of benevolent and mis- 
sionary contributions in the same period. 

II 

What about the Church and the city? The city by 
leaps and bounds is making itself the controlling power 
in modern civilization. Whatever may have been true 
in the past, it will remain true hereafter that the supreme 
problems of the race— social, industrial, intellectual, and 
moral — will find their chief field of discussion and the 
solution, if at all, in the city. In the city will be located 
the university, the endowed foundation for the pro- 
motion of scientific knowledge, eleemosynary institu- 
tions, the commanding journalism, the great publishing 
houses, and many kindred and potent agencies for giving 
direction and character to public life. Within the walls 
of the city civilization itself is to win its supreme vic- 
tories or to suffer its most tragic defeats. Christianity 
will be finally tested by its demonstrated ability or 
inability to meet and to overcome the moral obstacles 
of the city, and to establish there its seat of supremacy. 
It would seem significant that the apocalyptic prophecy 
locates the throne of the final and triumphant redemp- 
tion of the race in the midst of a great city — a city with 
foundations resting upon a new earth, such a city in 
the beauty and purity of its life as might have literally 



28 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

come down from God out of heaven. The apocalyptic 
city, within whose gates there could enter nothing which 
worketh abomination or maketh unclean, and whose 
very adornings are typified by the most precious and 
costly material things of earth, is the foreprophecy 
of the city which in perfection of life and beauty shall 
arise in the earth when the kingdom of Christ shall 
come to full realization. The perfect city is Christ's 
audacious prophecy for his kingdom. Its ideal is that 
it shall be the habitation of God's people, that righteous- 
ness shall sit in its seats of power, that integrity, virtue, 
and purity shall be the revealing features of its civic, 
social, and domestic life. 

What about the great cities of Christendom in this 
year of our Lord? The licensed saloons, more numer- 
ous by far than the churches, police graft honey-combing 
and debauching the legal protectorate of the city's 
safety, gambling made a lucrative trade, organized 
traffic in white slavery, the merchandise of social im- 
purity, so thriving that in every year thousands of the 
bodies and souls of women are murdered at its shrine 
and cast thence into the pit of oblivion as so much un- 
clean spawn of the city's refuse, murder stalking 
unarrested in the dark alleys — these, and their unholy 
ilk, are the crying evils of the city, evils which baffle 
the vigilant search of law and which flagrantly assert 
themselves as against the most vigorous protests of 
decency and righteousness. 

The city is the capital seat of commerce. Its marts 
and exchanges are the channels through which flow 
the nation's trade and wealth. Here, as nowhere else, 



THE CHURCH URBAN AND RURAL 29 

fortunes are quickly made and lost. The grave fact 
to be emphasized is that vast volumes of the city's 
trade are conducted without reference to, or restraint 
from, Christian ethics. The tragic thing is that too 
often men who in their homes and in private life are 
unexceptional are willing to act upon unethical methods 
in the market. Here they proceed upon the vicious 
proverb that "business is business." 

Aside, however, from these evil features, only too 
general, what is the status of the Christian Church 
itself in the life of the great city? We are called upon 
for all reasons not to detract in the slightest from the 
good work which the Church is achieving in the city. 
The Church, however circumstances may be against 
her, is accomplishing a vital, an indispensable work 
— a work without which the moral and spiritual life of 
the city would be impoverished beyond estimate. Yet, 
alas! measured by almost any visible standard, how 
impotent, de facto , seems the Christian Church to 
cope with, much less to control, the life of a great city. 
Numerically measured, the Church at best succeeds 
in getting but a small proportion of the population 
under the direct message of its ministry. It is estimated 
that in our large cities, averaging three hundred thousand 
and more, not more than seventeen per cent of the people 
regularly attend church. Dr. R. F. Horton is authority 
for the statement that in London not more than five 
per cent of the population regularly attend church. 
Of the laboring men in this country it is probable also 
that not more than five per cent are habitual church- 
goers. Brooklyn, New York city, is traditionally known 



3 o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

as the "City of Churches." In one of its best residential 
wards, under a most thorough recent house-to-house 
canvass made under the auspices of an organized federa- 
tion of churches, it is revealed that out of every one 
thousand families who classify themselves as Protestants, 
two hundred and eighty — twenty-eight per cent — have 
no church affiliations whatsoever. If these alleged facts, 
as cited, are typical of general conditions throughout 
the great cities of the land, then, it seems but conserv- 
ative to say that the Protestant Churches are failing 
disastrously in their hold upon those who ought to be 
the proper subjects for their ministry. 

Ill 

An old proverb says that "If man made the town, 
God made the country." Without knowledge to the 
contrary, it might readily be assumed that the rural 
districts would furnish fair and thriving fields for the 
churches. The relative importance of the rural church 
in the past would seem to be indicated by the testimony 
that fully seventy-five per cent of the business and 
religious leaders of the city were born and bred in the 
country. The vitality and ozone of the country have 
contributed to the city much of its best life. But the 
status of the country church proves distinctly disap- 
pointing to any hope based upon the theory of its natural 
advantage. A great and adverse change has come in 
recent years. The surveys of many representative and 
widely sundered sections furnish, with startling uni- 
formity, reports of declining attendance upon the rural 
church. 



THE CHURCH URBAN AND RURAL 31 

The causes of this decline have been well ascertained. 
These causes are various, and they are not all equally 
operative in the same sections. In general, the appli- 
ances of modern life have worked signal changes within 
recent years in the habits of the rural communities. 
In the earlier periods the "team-haul" distance repre- 
sented the measurement of the social and business boun- 
daries of the average rural community. Within these 
limits there were the country store, the post office, the 
gristmill, the blacksmith shop, and one or more rural 
churches. The distances to be traveled for barter or 
worship were such as could be covered by the ordinary 
drive with the farmer's team. Within these limits 
there was much life with mutual interests. The people 
knew each other, and such social life as existed was 
here developed. The young people made each other's 
acquaintances, formed their attachments, and started 
their new homes, usually within these given limits. 
The life of these communities was largely sufficient 
to itself. The people raised their own bread, spun 
their own flax and wool, and had little occasion or desire 
to know luxuries which might be imported from far 
climes. The world-vision of these people was narrow 
and comparatively obscure. The days of the railroad, 
of the daily press, of the telegraph, and the telephone 
were still far distant. The people, old and young, were 
inured to toil. Life with them was no playday. Their 
worship was in keeping with the community type. To 
those who were religious, religion was a cherished asset. 
Their faith was simple and rugged. The articles of 
their creed were not numerous, but they were clearly 



32 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

defined, often somber and severe, and adhered to with 
dogmatic tenacity. Much of the most cherished life 
of these early communities was developed hand in hand 
with their worship in the primitive and simple rural 
church. 

This type of community the nation over has pretty 
much disappeared. If we were to seek for contrasts 
which the appliances of modern life have effected as 
between the present and the past, we could hardly 
ask for any more vivid than those presented between 
the modern and former rural communities. To-day the 
rural delivery, the daily paper and the magazine, the 
telephone, the trolley car, the electric vehicle, machine 
planters, mowers, reapers, and harvesters, the piano 
and sewing machine, not to speak of a hundred other 
things, are the common possessions of rural life. The 
doors of superior educational opportunities are wide 
open to all the children of the farm, and the tastes, 
requirements, and styles of urban life have traveled 
into many country homes. The change effected by all 
this in the scope of educational concepts, social ideals, 
and even in religious faith, it is impossible to measure. 
One thing is certain — the old rural life, with its simple 
habits, its social, industrial, and religious ideals and 
methods, has gone, never to be reproduced. The present 
generation, let it be headed which way it will, can never 
by any possibility put itself back into the ideals and 
methods of its forefathers. On general principles, vast 
revisions from the beliefs and customs of former gen- 
erations were made inevitable in the transition from 
the older to the new life of to-day. In so general a 



THE CHURCH URBAN AND RURAL 33 

modernizing movement the questions of worship and 
of faith could not fail to be involved. 

The country church in general has not kept pace with 
modern progressive movements. In the single matter 
of church architecture, the rural church is generally and 
relatively far behind the city. Very many edifices 
throughout the country are old and dilapidated. They 
are not only unattractive in appearance, but they are 
practically uncomfortable for use. Many of them are 
single-roomed, or, at best, they have upstairs audi- 
toriums and downstairs basements. These churches 
are built on lines that reflect the austere and primitive 
habits of former days. They do not invite to social 
life, much less to the cheer and enthusiasm of a glad 
spiritual worship. 

Another blight on the rural churches is in the 

multiplication of denominations. In order to give a 

concrete illustration of this too general condition I cite 

literally a statement of experience of a Presbyterian 

minister, Dr. Charles B. Taylor, of McArthur, Ohio. 

He says: 

In the field where I spent the last few years of my pastoral life, at 

the southern extremity of the field is the village of T , with about 

two hundred inhabitants. There are four churches in the place — Method- 
ist, United Brethren, Presbyterian, and Christian. Two miles east 
is another Methodist church, and a mile and a half north is another United 
Brethren church. The entire population living within convenient distance 
of these six churches is about nine hundred. The aggregate member- 
ship of these churches is about two hundred and seventy, or about forty- 
five to each church. Four ministers labored among these churches, 
their fields extending elsewhere over wide circuits. The Methodist 
Episcopal minister supplied five churches. On one Sunday he preached 
three times and rode eighteen miles. On the next Sunday he preached 
twice and rode ten miles. He conducted five series of special revival 
services during the year, and did a large amount of pastoral work, visit- 



34 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

ing the sick and burying the dead. His salary was five hundred dollars 
a year and a parsonage. 

The United Brethren minister had seven churches under his care. 
He preached at each place once in three weeks. During the year he 
held seven series of special services. The churches were widely scattered. 
The preacher's salary was four hundred and seventy-five dollars. With that 
pitiful amount he supported his family, paid house-rent, and kept a horse. 
The brother who ministered to the Christian church had four churches 
under his care. His salary was about four hundred and eighty dollars. 

My field consisted of four little Presbyterian churches, extending 
along a line from north to south. On one Sunday I drove twenty-four 
miles and preached twice, and occasionally three times. On the next 
Sunday I drove eight miles and preached twice. The territory under 
my pastoral care was twenty-one miles long and eight miles wide. The 
visitation of the sick and the large number of funerals to which I was 
called added much to the burdens of the work. Like other brethren, 
I was expected to hold a series of special services at each church. I 
preached about two hundred sermons each year, and drove nearly two 
thousand miles over rough hills and, for the most part, red-clay roads # 
The winter trips were hard for a man of my age. My salary was eight 
hundred dollars. 

Four preachers ministered to twenty churches, and the work broke 
down strong men. The other three received salaries which were pitifully 
inadequate. Our congregations were small. The little churches lacked 
the enthusiasm which comes with numbers. And the pity of it was 
that we covered practically the same ground, and crossed and recrossed 
the tracks of each other every day. 1 

The results of such a situation are more negative 
than good. Undue emphasis is laid upon denominational 
differences. Conscientious people are held aloof from 
effective cooperation in needed Christian work. Min- 
isters in such communities are meagerly supported, 
and hence, by an inevitable law, if they remain upon 
the ground, they lose both heart and effectiveness. 
Indeed, there is very little in such a community to in- 
spire either enthusiasm or hope in the average minister. 
A young man doomed to such a service will, as a rule, 



1 Professor Garland A. Bricker, Solving the Country Church Problem, pp. 76-78. 



THE CHURCH URBAN AND RURAL 35 

come after a while to accept the limitations of his environ- 
ment. His personal support is insufficient. He can 
neither buy new books with which to feed and stimulate 
his mind, nor can he afford travel, by which he could 
refresh and enlarge his vision. The average young 
minister, whatever his native talent or his initial ad- 
vantages, will be sure in the end to succumb to a situa- 
tion which does not admit of expansion. A small, 
unresponsive and unprogressive community presents 
conditions which are deadly to professional ambition. 
A live man will either escape such a situation, or, if 
he is held to its environment, he is so robbed of the 
stimuli of growth, of the incentive to endeavor, that 
he soon acquires the habit and mood of confirmed 
mediocrity. If a community pursues the policy of 
paying starvation wages, then that community will 
receive its reward in the services of an anaemic ministry 
— a ministry victimized by chronic starvation of its 
social, intellectual, and spiritual faculties. 

A largely underlying difficulty in the problem of the 
rural church is the lack of ready money in the average 
farming community. The farmer is proverbially frugal. 
There are reasons which make this inevitable. For the 
most part he handles very little money. In order to 
save at all he must be industrious, economical, careful 
at every point in his expenditures. It is the general 
testimony concerning good lands in Missouri that after 
having paid the legal rate of interest on his farm invest- 
ment, there remains to the farmer only about enough 
to pay his store bills. 1 Among six hundred and fifteen 

1 Bricker, Solving the Country Church Problem, p. 36. 



3 6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

farmers located in the State of New York, near Cornell 
University, where the farmers are supposed to profit 
by the services of the Agricultural College, it was found 
on intensive investigation that these men averaged only 
about four hundred and twenty-three dollars each. 1 
Iowa is supposed to be one of the best of the agricultural 
States. The editor of Wallace's Farmer is authority 
for the statement that the margin of profit in Iowa 
is the margin of child labor on the farm. 2 It is much 
easier to interest the Iowa farmer in the purchase of 
up-to-date farming implements than it is to interest 
him in the improvement of the schools or the public 
highways. This means that he has more money to 
spend in improving his farm industry than he has to 
spend upon social or neighborhood improvements. In 
the country at large there are many States whose farm- 
ing profits average lower rather than above those in 
the State of Iowa. It is easy to see how, under such 
general conditions, the country church is likely to re- 
ceive only a meager financial support. This condition 
alone very largely accounts both for the poor quality 
of country church edifices and the insufficient salaries 
paid to preachers. 

The ministry should not be, and as a matter of fact 
certainly is not, a mercenary profession. Young men 
do not enter this profession, as one might enter one 
of several other callings, with the hope that from services 
rendered a liberal, if not an affluent, income will be 
realized. All that can be looked for at best is a living 



1 Bricker, Solving the Country Church Problem, p. 36. 

2 Ibid., p. 37. 



THE CHURCH URBAN AND RURAL 37 

income which, frugally husbanded, may serve to keep 
the family in respectable comfort, and possibly to pro- 
vide suitable educational advantages for the children. 
It may be questioned whether the members of any 
other high-grade profession have acquired, as have 
the families of ministers, the art of making a small in- 
come go so far in the direction of maintaining respectable 
appearances and a comfortable living. The pastor in 
any parish, if conscientiously faithful in discharge of 
duty, feels called upon to render innumerable services, 
many of which make heavy drafts upon his nervous 
force and sympathies. He has many diverse characters 
and interests to deal with, and is often subject to crit- 
icism which is both thoughtless and heartless. A writer 
in the Bibliotheca Sacra puts the situation as follows: 
"As a simple matter of truth the minister is the hardest- 
worked wage-earner in the country. No first-class 
carpenter or plumber or mason or other skilled artisan 
has to surrender so many personal rights and submit 
to so many indignities, both with respect to himself 
and his family, as the average minister of to-day; and 
the wages of the skilled artisan are now higher to boot." 
It must be self-evident that no Christian minister 
can do his best work, under conditions of self-respect 
or of comfort for himself and family, who fails to receive 
a competent living support. But the ministerial pro- 
fession is by odds the poorest paid profession in the 
nation. The average minister's salary in the United 
States, outside of one hundred and fifty largest cities, 
is five hundred and seventy-three dollars. The Com- 
mission appointed by President Roosevelt to settle the 



3 8 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

anthracite coal strike reported that the average earn- 
ings of certain classes of laborers in Pennsylvania were 
as follows: 

Stablemen $689 . 52 

Pumpmen 685 . 72 

Carpenters 603 . 90 

Blacksmiths 557 . 43 1 

In the investigations of the conditions of The Country 
Church, by Charles Otis Gill and Gifford Pinchot, these 
authors feel compelled to emphasize the lack of adequate 
ministerial support as one of the principal causes in the 
decline of the rural church. Comparing periods twenty 
years apart, while it is shown that ministerial salaries 
generally in the same territories have been nominally 
increased, yet, in view of the present higher costs of 
living, the salaries now paid have by a considerable 
margin less purchasing power than was true of the smaller 
salaries of the earlier period. 

On general principles, it ought to prove true that 
in the richer farming regions the rural church should 
receive the better support. And this in many sections 
is shown to be the fact. But in the larger and richer 
farming regions other conditions often intervene to 
disturb this natural tendency. In the better farming 
sections it often happens that the land is owned by 
an absentee landlord. The farm is cultivated by a 
tenant, who pays rent for his privileges. In such case 
the rule is that neither the absentee owner nor the tenant 
feels much responsibility for the church. In many 
cases the well-to-do farmer moves into town either 

> Simm, What Must the Church Do To Be Saved? p. 194. 



THE CHURCH URBAN AND RURAL 39 

for the purpose of leading a retired life for himself, or 
of giving his children better educational advantages. 
In such case the same thing happens as before. The 
man so placed, as a rule, does not lend much financial 
aid either to the rural church which he has left nor to 
the town church which he attends. 

A condition which has often worked depletion to the 
country church is in the fact that the children of farmers 
go from home for purposes of education. But the 
college-bred farmer's boy or girl rarely goes back to 
make a living on the old farm. It is from such stock 
that the city is constantly making heavy drafts for the 
reenforcement of its own most potent life. 

It is also said, and probably with much truth, that 
the average college and seminary-bred preacher fails 
largely to adapt himself to the country congregation. 
The education he has received, the newspapers, the 
magazines, and the books which he reads, all are far 
less imbued with a spirit of country than of urban life. 
He unconsciously fails to put himself en rapport with 
the moods and habits of rural thought, and thus fails 
to command an enthusiastic following from his parish- 
ioners. So controlling is this tendency that, in the 
judgment of many experts on the rural church problem, 
the candidate for the rural pulpit ought, as part of his 
ministerial equipment, to take a thorough course in 
an agricultural college. 

If these surveys of many representative and widely 
sundered sections furnish, and with startling uniformity, 
reports of declining attendance upon the rural church, 
we do not have to travel far to discover many reasons 



4 o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

for such declension. These reasons in themselves, how- 
ever, do not much help our faith. An honest facing 
of the real facts seems to force upon us the unwelcome 
conclusion that in city and country alike the Church 
is falling gravely short of realizing the larger ideals of 
its mission. 



THE CHURCH AND THE POOR 



41 



Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and show John again those 
things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the 
lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised 
up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. — Matthew ii. 4, 5. 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to 
preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, 
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, 
to set at liberty them that are bruised. — Luke 4. 18. 

The number of propertyless wage-earners is on the increase; their 
material existence is growing more precarious, and the spirit of dissatis- 
faction and revolt is developing among them. — Morris Hillquit. 

Only as all the wealth of possession and knowledge, of joy and virtue, 
is opened to hearts most remote from the worths of life, is there the fill- 
ing up of the great gulf, the uniting of a man with humanity. Only as 
these goods are poured out to those from whom no recompense can be 
expected, and we offer the feast of life to the poor, the lame, and the 
blind, do we actually unite ourselves with humanity. Anything short 
of this limits us to a class, a segment separate from mankind. Only 
in devoted ministry to "these least" are we one with humanity in all 
the sorrows and strivings and common values, whereby we accomplish 
the social, the universal achievement of the spiritual task. — Charles 
Henry Dickinson. 



CHAPTER III 

THE CHURCH AND THE POOR 

A great Christian ideal is that the gospel is for the 
poor. Christ was born and reared among the lowly. 
He was known as the friend of those who labor and 
are heavy-laden. His services for and among the poor 
were so brotherly, so sincere, so rich, so unceasing, that 
throughout his entire public life his very pathway was 
thronged by grateful masses. 

In his drama Mary Magdalene, Maeterlinck gives 
the name "Silenus" to a Roman nobleman who was 
the friend of Mary Magdalene, and in whose house 
she was often a guest. Next door to Silenus dwelt 
Simon the leper, a rich man whom Jesus had cured 
of leprosy. Jesus was a familiar guest in the home of 
Simon. It was on Simon's grounds that the poor fre- 
quently gathered to receive his ministry. Mary Mag- 
dalene, who was herself wealthy, had lost a precious 
treasure, which she thought had been stolen by some 
follower of Jesus. This drew from Silenus the reply 
which I here quote as illustrating Maeterlinck's con- 
ception of Christ's relation to the poor. 

Silenus says: "I am in fairly good position to know 
the band, seeing that for five or six days, it has been 
gathered near my house. I have even had the pleasure 
— for everything turns to pleasure at my age — I have 
even had the pleasure of attending one of their meet- 

43 



44 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

ings. It was near the old road to Jericho. The leader 
was speaking in the midst of a crowd covered with dust 
and rags, among whom I observed a large number of 
rather repulsive cripples and sick. They seem extremely 
ignorant and exalted. They are poor and dirty, but 
I believe them to be harmless and incapable of stealing 
more than a cup of water or an ear of wheat." 

Again he says concerning these meetings on Simon's 
grounds: "It is a perpetual coming and going, a per- 
petual tumult. Their orchard is filled incessantly with 
a multitude of sick, of vagrants, of cripples, issuing 
from all the rocks in Judaea to beseech him, whom, 
with loud cries, they call the Saviour of the world, the 
Son of David and King of the Jews. There are some- 
times so many of them that they overflow into my garden. ' ' 

At its very origin Christianity surrounded itself with 
a kind of communistic atmosphere in which the poor 
were made to feel their full peership and kinship as 
citizens of the Kingdom. Historically, Christianity, in 
its most intense and awakening spiritual periods, has 
always voiced itself in resistless appeal to laboring and 
burdened life; in this life it has wrought its greatest 
transformations, from such it has recruited its largest 
numbers and most valuable working forces. Are the 
Protestant churches of to-day the churches of the poor? 
It should be emphasized that here and there through- 
out our great centers of population there are individual 
churches, well attended, and whose congregations are 
made up mostly of wage-earners and poor people. The 
worship is usually characterized by a zest and joy of 
service indicating a hearty spirituality. Such churches 



THE CHURCH AND THE POOR 45 

illustrate the truth that the faith and spirit of the gospel 
as exemplified by the Master still make their welcome 
appeal to the multitudes. 

But it could hardly be claimed, I think, that such are 
the typical Protestant Churches of the present. The 
famous churches of our great cities are, for the most 
part, supported and attended by the privileged classes 
— privileged in the sense of temporal prosperity. These 
churches pay high salaries, command the ablest pulpit 
talent, enjoy the most perfect rendering of sacred music 
from organ and choir. Their material accessories of 
worship are likely to be the most attractive which money 
and artistic skill may secure. But in the pews of such 
churches, well-nigh without exception, the really poor 
have only at best a minor representation. The truth 
is that the poor do not feel at home in these stately 
edifices dedicated to the worship of Him who was born 
in a manger, and who throughout his beneficent min- 
istry was a homeless wanderer, not having as much as 
a cot of his own on which at night to lay his wearied body. 

It should be said to the credit of many churches whose 
pews are thronged with wealthy worshipers that they 
give largely in support of missions in congested neigh- 
borhoods for the benefit of the poor. The motives 
of such giving are not to be impugned. The good achieved 
therefrom should be fully accredited. The workers in 
these missions are doubtless personally consecrated and 
useful. Yet there is a class quality in such ministra- 
tion which does not appear even to its beneficiaries 
quite of the kind which Christ was wont to give in his 
personal ministry, nor quite of the kind which he would 



46 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

give were he physically present to-day among the poor. 
There are many who in a spirit of sheer self-respect 
decline to avail themselves of a gospel which is relegated 
to them through the hired agencies of the absent rich. 
It is the direct action of personality, of heart upon heart, 
that really tells in the winning of men. This was Christ's 
method. He gave himself. In the vision of Sir Launfal 
Christ is made to say: 

"The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
In whatso we share with another's need; 
Not what we give, but what we share, 
For the gift without the giver is bare; 
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 

It is the purpose of this chapter more to state than 
to explain conditions. But a most casual view of our 
times make obvious some causes which tend to cleavage 
between the Church and the poor. To most of the 
poor, life is a struggle for the mere necessities of exist- 
ence. From a mere financial standpoint the Church 
is a luxury which many self-respecting poor feel that 
they cannot afford. They prefer to drop out of church 
associations rather than to rank themselves either as 
financial delinquents or charity subjects. 

This, moreover, is an age in which more than ever 
before, the poor are awakened to a sense of solidarity. 
They are, as a great class, beginning to feel the poten- 
tialities of their social and industrial strength. There 
is a wide feeling among them that capitalism, which 
has such a potent voice in shaping and directing the 
policies of the Church, and which so powerfully controls 
the business world, is neither self-denying nor just in 



THE CHURCH AND THE POOR 47 

its relations to the poor. It is this feeling, widely abroad, 
about the selfishness and tyranny of capitalism which 
accounts for Socialism in politics, for the labor union 
in the industrial world, and for many other forms of 
organized protest against social and industrial injustice 
imposed upon the weak by the strong. The spirit and 
motive of an industrial democracy are wide abroad in 
the age. By subtle gravitation the interests of the 
poor are aligned with Socialism — to-day a growing 
menace in civilization — or with other industrial creeds 
or philosophies of social amelioration. 

The poor en masse were never so interested as now 
in the quest, to be enjoyed in this mundane life, of a 
garden of physical plenty, if not of luxury. There is 
a growing sense of the right of all God's children to a 
fair share of the common bounties of nature. This 
sense will never subside. Before its rising strength all 
facts of social or industrial injustice will be increasingly 
resisted. Unfortunately, be the inference true or false, 
there is a wide impression in the laboring world that 
the Church in its controlling mind is not practically 
sympathetic with the deeper needs of the poor, that 
it is not openly and bravely a defender of the rights 
of the poor as against the assumptions and encroach- 
ments of capitalistic interests. This view has been 
put injuriously deep into the minds of multitudes of 
the laboring masses. In the world of organized labor, 
now a large world, there is well-nigh universal distrust 
of, if not alienation toward, the Church. I cannot 
believe that the real spirit of Protestant Churches is 
such as to justify this antipathy of labor. But that 



48 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

there exists a wide cleavage between the Church and 
labor no discerning man can deny. 

A few years ago President Plantz, of Lawrence College, 
in preparation of a highly useful book, addressed a letter 
to the secretary of every national organization of labor 
in the United States — two hundred and thirty-eight 
letters in all. A question asked was this: "What do 
you think is the general attitude of the laboring class 
at the present time to the Church, one of cordiality, 
indifference, dissatisfaction, or hostility?" Ninety-three 
replies were received. Of these only six stated the 
attitude to be one of cordiality; eleven said indifference; 
three, hostility; and the balance, dissatisfaction. 

A second question was asked: "What, in your opinion, 
are the reasons for this attitude?" The replies, all 
interesting and many elaborate, clearly show that the 
indifference of working classes to the Church grows 
largely out of the position which the Church is assumed 
to hold on social and labor questions. 

It is not my purpose to defend the positions taken 
by these leaders of labor. The thing to be emphasized 
is the attitude, whether just or unjust, in which labor 
stands in relation to the Church. The men who framed 
these answers, answers which carry such unanimity of 
conclusion, are recognized leaders in the labor world. 
They are intelligent men. They know the very thought 
and feeling of the laboring masses. Their statements 
doubtless give a true reflection of the real situation. 
The grave feature of the case is that labor is out of har- 
mony with the Church. It holds itself aloof from the 
Church. It refuses to recognize the Church as either 



THE CHURCH AND THE POOR 49 

its social, moral, or spiritual guide. To either party 
in the case the situation, justly looked upon, can only 
be regarded as fraught with disaster. 

The Church has no more legitimate, no more sacred, 
mission than to the laboring multitudes. If God's 
Fatherhood yearns over mankind, if Jesus Christ died 
for all men, then, the Church ought supremely to be 
the agent for winning the poor as well as the rich to the 
refuge of God's friendship. By all the sanctities of 
its divine mission it ought to prove itself the most perfect 
friend of the friendless, the most perfect helper of the 
helpless. A nurtured alienation of the poor as against 
the Church can in the interests of the Church itself 
be construed as no less than a calamity of the first mag- 
nitude. 

But this attitude can finally mean no less a calamity 
to the laborer himself. If he cuts himself away from 
the fellowships, the nurture, the inspiring ideals and 
hopes of the Christian Church, where else is he to go 
to find a compensating moral ministry? If he shall 
do this, toward what future does he face his own poster- 
ity? If he feels that his lot with all that the Church 
can do for him is limited and poor, then, what will be 
his own moral future, the future of his children, when 
by deliberate choice he shuts himself and his house- 
hold away from the doors of the Christian sanctuary? 
By his own choice he moves himself and his family 
out into the blank wastes of materialistic living. For 
the bread that he eats, and the raiment that he wears, 
he will still have to toil and struggle. The conditions 
of his earthly lot in divorcement from the Church will 



5 o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

certainly not be improved. Into his home will come 
trouble, sickness, and bereavement. Where, in his 
unchurched life, is he then to turn for consolation, to 
what agency is he to look for that ministry of heaven 
which in such experiences he will supremely need? 
And then, the future of his children — does he dare to 
send them forth into the world destitute of Christian 
nurture? History lends its tragic testimony to the 
fatal perils of such a choice. No. The laboring men, 
the weary and heavy-laden, need few things more vitally 
than they need the ministries and fellowships of the 
Christian Church. The Church needs the laboring man. 
The laboring man needs the Church. Their interests 
and services ought to be merged in a mutual and indis- 
soluble union. 

It is a paramount pity that just in this age there 
should be anything like a marked cleavage between 
the Church and organized labor. The world of labor 
is a wide-awake world. The Church ought to surround 
and invade this world with the best ideals, the best 
inspirations, the best sympathies which can be born 
of a heaven-inspired gospel for humanity. The labor 
movement cannot be ignored. It is born of new ideals, 
from a new intelligence, and is pervaded and sustained 
by a great and growing sense of human rights. In the 
movement, as we have been forced to study it, there 
appears much that is crude and even brutal. In the 
camp of labor the spirit of the incendiary and the assassin 
has sometimes stirred the atmosphere of riot and of 
terror; out from this camp the hell-inspired dynamiter 
has sometimes stolen forth in the night upon the fell 



THE CHURCH AND THE POOR 51 

mission of destroying property and life. But these 
are exotics of evil such as sometimes grow under the 
hedges and in the darkened corners of the human garden. 
They should not be accepted as standards for judging 
the labor movement. They are not the normal product 
of labor organizations. The great mass of labor is 
law-abiding, home-loving, and at its heart there is an 
irrepressible yearning for citizenship in the common- 
wealth of an enfranchised humanity. 

The labor movement throbs with the birth-throes of 
a new industrial civilization. It is a movement for- 
ward, not backward; Canaan, not Egypt, is its goal. 
It will be discreditable, a lasting reproach to the Church, 
if in this age she fails to realize her own great opportunity, 
under the standards of the gospel, to install herself as 
the leader and inspirer of the armies of labor. 



PART THIRD 
FACTORS OF LIMITATION 



53 



RATIONAL READJUSTMENTS 



55 



Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing 
I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto 
those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of 
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. . . . We ... do not cease to pray 
for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his 
will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that ye might walk worthy 
of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and in- 
creasing in the knowledge of God. — Saint Paul. 

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfills himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 

Science represents truth, sanity, disinterestedness, frankness, devo- 
tion, accurate observation, and correct thinking. It has fashioned an 
incomparable method without which we can do nothing aright. Re- 
ligion represents faith, aspiration, progress, poetry, discontent with the 
present, consecration, love of God and love of man, self-denial, self-sacrifice. 
One does not have to reflect long to perceive that these precious and 
holy things are both of God, or to see in how many ways one can help 
and serve the other. . . . What we want is not mere tolerance, not the 
grudging assent on the part of the one to the existence and ideals of the 
other, but the application of scientific method to the problem of religion 
and the ennobling of science by the religious spirit. — Dr. El wood 
Worcester. 






56 



CHAPTER IV 

RATIONAL READJUSTMENTS 

The unceasing growth of knowledge and the steady 
expansion of thought are resistless revisionary forces. 
At first thought it might seem incongruous that en- 
lightened reason could ever be the agent of uncertainty 
and bewilderment to the Christian mind. But, as a 
matter of fact, reason has been the great intellectual 
and social disturber of the ages. Reason in order to 
secure for itself sure standing ground has always had 
to contend with aeonic unreason. Rational progress has 
been secured only at the cost of overcoming obstacles 
enshrined in both custom and tradition. 

The evolutionist tells us that long before man was 
a reasonable being he was an emotional animal. For 
dateless ages he was far more governed by his appetites, 
his impulses, and emotions than by any law born of 
thought. As tribal relations developed there grew up 
certain usages which hardened into custom, the observ- 
ance of which, in the common interests of the tribe, 
was made obligatory upon all. The acts so consecrated 
were, by general consensus, adjudged to be for the com- 
mon good, and hence in effect were accorded the sacred- 
ness of law. Acts which, by the same general test, 
were counted injurious were put under taboo, were for- 
bidden. It was thus that the savage man first acquired 
his sense of right and wrong. He did right when his 

57 



58 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

conduct conformed to the serviceable custom of his 
tribe. He did wrong when he committed the act tabooed, 
the injurious act. Thus the first ethical sense of prim- 
itive man sprang from the recognition of social neces- 
sities. 

Whether this theory is accepted or rejected matters 
little so far as real history is concerned. Nothing is 
historically clearer than that the knowledge of the most 
knowing has in large part been reached by slow processes, 
every step of which has encountered barriers erected 
by some ancient custom, prejudice, or superstition. 
Custom has been the despot of the ages. It is such 
to-day. Its power in society is well voiced in the fa- 
miliar saying that "One might as well be out of the 
world as out of the fashion." At this writing the "hobble 
skirt" is in vogue. As a fashion it is really so ultra that 
many sensible women have entered a league of revolt 
against its decrees. But nevertheless it parades itself 
in great numbers and show upon the avenues. It is 
a fashion which cannot plead for itself a moral, even 
if it may an economic, defense. But it is one to which 
multitudes of women have succumbed, a majority of 
whom, five years ago, would have been "inexpress- 
ibly shocked" to see any one of their sisters on the 
streets in a costume like that in which they themselves 
now unhesitatingly appear. Imitation is a factor of 
marked influence in collective social life, and it is on 
this principle that particular styles, even in clothes, 
which ought to be impossible, come to assert the tyranny 
of custom. 

But what is true in the minor matter of costumes is 



RATIONAL READJUSTMENTS 59 

far more bindingly true in the realms of creed and tra- 
dition. The tendency of the great masses of men, the 
tendency of all men indeed, is just to perpetuate in their 
own lives beliefs and customs as transmitted to them 
by their fathers. There has been handed down, well- 
nigh intact, from antiquities, nobody knows how great, 
whole volumes of folklore containing all mixtures of 
absurdities, superstitions, myths, fables — mixtures that 
might have been brewed in the cauldrons of Macbeth' s 
witches. And there are many among us who familiarly 
quote these things as talismanic of the weather, of crops, 
of weddings, or of anything that might happen in do- 
mestic or social life. Let it be granted that many who 
indulge in this kind of pastime have little or no faith 
in the validity of the things which they repeat. The 
significant thing is that the collective mind at any stage 
in its history could have invented and formulated so 
many mental nostrums, and the greater wonder is that 
these things should be perpetuated in the memory and 
thought-habit of succeeding generations. 

The evolution of superstitious thought has been much 
studied. It is well known that in prescientific ages 
the unexplained phenomena of nature contributed in- 
definitely to inspire the human mind with a sense of 
awe and mystery. These were ages in which ghosts 
and witches abounded, when Satan in Protean forms 
insidiously stole into the haunts of men. The human 
imagination was at once stimulated and depressed by 
the combined sensations of hope and fear, of faith and 
perplexity. There was a weird sense of spiritual phe- 
nomena, not all benign, pervasive of environment. Many 



6o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

events were charged to supernatural causes. The more 
mysterious the event the more certain was it to be 
connected with some occult movement of Providence. 
Nature, to the primitive man, furnished ubiquitous 
provocation for the invention of superstitious beliefs. 

The Christian religion in itself, measured in its own 
terms, is infinitely removed from a religion of super- 
stition. But all through the centuries multitudes of 
its adherents have been largely imbued with super- 
stition. These shared the common notions of then- 
times. They inevitably mingled their superstitions with 
their religious faith. And so it has easily and certainly 
resulted that the Church itself has been a channel through 
which many false views of both nature and Providence 
have come down to our times. Buckle, for instance, 
in his History of Civilization, directs many of his most 
caustic paragraphs against the Church of Scotland — 
the Church in the land of David Hume and Sir Walter 
Scott — as being a very nursery of superstitious beliefs. 

Nor should all this be to the modern mind either a 
source of wonder or of censure. Before the advent 
of science — and the most fruitful science is hardly older 
than some men now living — the phenomena of nature 
were interpreted by the imagination rather than by 
methods of ascertained law. The imagination made its 
appeal far more largely to mystery than to knowledge, 
and hence could not well be other than a fruitful mother 
of false notions and superstitious beliefs. Christianity, 
in its New Testament character, was, of course, never 
responsible for the burden of error thus carried in the 
popular mind. But Christianity could not escape the 



RATIONAL READJUSTMENTS 61 

evil mixture of false views which its subjects so uni- 
versally associated even with their religious beliefs. 

Now, when it is remembered that conservatism is 
not only one of the most permanent but one of the most 
controlling forces governing human thought and conduct, 
it cannot be a subject of wonder that reason in its con- 
flict for a rational interpretation of the world has en- 
countered vast obstacles from inherited and cherished 
errors and superstitions. Conservatism has ever been 
sovereign in the world of common thought. In the 
ecclesiastical world this rule has been so secure, has 
been so popularly approved, that he has always been 
the exceptional man whose voice was raised for a new 
departure. This man, if he is not too large of girth, 
or too persistent, may be borne with. He may be re- 
garded as a freak, or a harmless fanatic. But if he be 
a Wesley, he will be mobbed in the street; if he be a 
Luther, the princes and councilors of empire will sum- 
mon him to trial, and the Pope will issue a bull of excom- 
munication against him. We may not forget that the 
rulers of the Jewish Church hunted Christ to his cross 
because they regarded him as a dangerous heretic. 

If we survey the whole world of thought and action, 
if we review the entire history of progress, with this 
thought in view, we shall be more than ever impressed 
that only the exceptional man advances beyond the 
great routine. China, with its four hundred million 
population, until just now has stood for centuries a 
huge, unprogressive civilization. Why? Simply because 
from immemorial time every generation has repeated the 
thoughts, acts, and experiences of its predecessor. A 



62 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

certain stereotyped habit of life has stamped itself into 
the very fiber and customs of the people. Against it 
has been trained the heaviest gunnery of Western ideals, 
and yet at this very hour the outer walls of Chinese 
conservatism are only slightly breached here and there. 

Yet among people who imagine themselves as in the 
van of modern progress there are whole colonies charac- 
terized by an unyielding and unmoving conservatism of 
much the same quality as that of the Chinese nation. 
How many of all we know are there who analyze great 
problems for themselves? How many are there who 
invent new implements of material progress? How 
many are there who make great scientific discoveries? 
How many are there who in the very vital realm of 
religious knowledge and experience are not moving in 
the same beaten pathways as their fathers before them? 
Or, how many are there who, if challenged, would be 
able to render clear and convincing reasons, for instance, 
for their views of the Bible, or for the entire assortment 
of convictions which they so religiously hold? 

Many millions of communicants are included in the 
membership of the great Greek and Roman Churches. 
But it is the definite policy of these organizations to 
discourage among the laity independent investigation of 
religious questions. The Church, or, rather, the priestly 
oligarchy, claims so authoritatively to have defined all 
articles of faith as to make it unnecessary for the lay 
mind to vex itself with such matters. The very name 
' 'Protestantism' ' implies dissent, cleavage, from the long 
heredity of usage and belief as maintained in the older 
Catholicism. But it is far from the universal habit 



RATIONAL READJUSTMENTS 63 

of Protestants to protest. The majorities accept their 
doctrines as they do their clothes, as ready-made articles. 
The overshadowing fact is that men viewed en masse 
are ancestral in their habits. We are what we are largely 
because of the homes in which we were born. Heredity 
has put its stamp upon us. Our deeper and controlling 
habits have been largely shaped by reactions from our 
early domestic and social environments. The philosophy 
of the most general beliefs is quite truthfully expressed 
in the lines wrought out by Henry Sidgwick in his sleep : 

We think so because all others think so; 

Or because — or because — after all, we do think so; 

Or because we were told so, and think we must think so; 

Or because we once thought so, and still think we think so; 

Or because, having thought so, we think we still think so. 

Now, all this, of course, is not to deny the sincerity 
nor to invalidate the Christian goodness of multitudes 
whose thinking, so far as it goes, is well-nigh purely 
traditional. But it all does emphasize the necessity, 
if there is to be real progress for mankind, of better 
mental processes. If there is to be a larger grasp on 
truth, if there is to be clearer intellectual apprehension 
of the world around us, if the life of men is to be en- 
riched by great accessions of new knowledge, then, it 
is necessary for somebody at least to do some original 
thinking. 

Traditional views are not to be condemned simply 
because they are traditional. There are two types of 
traditional thinking. The one covers all that class 
which has had a long tenure in human thought, but the 
assumptions of which do not prove truthful. Many 
old and cherished views have not been able to abide 



64 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

the tests of scientific examination. Once, to the common 
belief, the world was simply a round flat disc, a spread- 
out plane. This belief is no longer possible. The 
Ptolemaic astronomy once commanded assent from the 
most learned minds. But after a false sway of four- 
teen centuries this system received its deathblow at 
the hands of a Bohemian monk, an original thinker, a 
patient investigator, who not only clearly demonstrated 
its fundamental falsities, but displaced the system by a 
new astronomy. 

False traditional views have placed many vicious 
interpretations upon the Bible. The science of literary 
and historical criticism has by no means been alone, 
or chiefly, responsible for enforced changes in biblical 
interpretation. It was once a belief universally and 
profoundly accepted in Christian thought that God 
literally in six days created the heavens and the earth 
with all that in them is. It was not the higher criticism, 
but geology, a first-hand study of nature's formative 
processes, that forced the abandonment of this view. 
It has been just as positively believed, on assumed 
biblical authority, that man has existed on the earth 
for only about six thousand years. Indubitable scientific 
discovery has also rendered this view untenable. 
Archaeology distinctly confirms the conclusion that 
elaborate civilizations existed upon the earth at a period 
far antedating six thousand years ago. 

A dogmatic misconstruction of the Bible has been 
responsible for much disgraceful controversy with, and 
many humiliating theological defeats from, scientific 
authorities. Science, in the very nature of its quest, 



RATIONAL READJUSTMENTS 65 

is often called upon to modify or to revise its working 
hypotheses, but it is always in pursuit of verified results, 
and when it reaches these it can suffer no defeats. The 
champions of unscientific dogma by their noisy attacks 
upon, and their sullen retreats from, the assured demon- 
strations of science, have furnished one of the most 
humiliating chapters in the history of theological thought. 
Happily, to the credit of modern intellect, and for the 
advancement of a sane faith, the Bible is now more and 
more receiving an interpretation which does not put 
it in conflict with scientific truth. 

A second type of traditional views is of the kind that 
expresses truth, after much truth, but not all the truth 
knowable of the subject involved has been ascertained. 
This type is fundamental. It furnishes conditions indis- 
pensable to progress in knowledge. At least it furnishes 
initial and essential stepping-stones in the direction of 
final truth. Perfected knowledge is the result of evolu- 
tionary processes. The perfected type of the Corliss 
engine is a marvel of ingenuity. But it is not the product 
of any one brain, nor of any one generation. It repre- 
sents not only the fundamental principle adopted by 
James Watt in his original patent of 1769, but the finest 
coordinated results of all revisions and improvements 
in construction which have been contributed through 
nearly a hundred and fifty years of inventive work. 
This history may illustrate how old facts are fundamental 
to the most perfect present-day knowledge. The prin- 
ciple has equal application to many traditional views 
which have come to us from a remote past. 

Nothing is to be said against traditional thought 



66 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

in itself considered. It may be as expressive of truth 
as any matter of scientific verification, or it may con- 
tain features of truth which condition indispensably 
further knowledge on a given subject of inquiry. The 
difficulty with many traditional minds is that the truth 
which they hold is with them a thing of arrested develop- 
ment. They are content with a fragment, a rudiment, 
in place of the fully developed product. 

But this mental habit — the habit, alas! of multitudes 
of good people — in itself gives poor promise for the 
future. It is not the habit from which are begotten 
the pioneers of advanced movements in Church or in 
state. The mind that has dropped into a dogmatic 
and contented mood in the possession of things received 
only from the past is a mind with its vision closed to 
the future. It is as though the twentieth century, 
instead of looking forward for new intellectual and moral 
conquests, for new spiritual dominions, were called upon 
to be content with the standards, the ideals, and the 
partial knowledge of the eighteenth century. The crea- 
tion of Watt's engine was a great achievement. It 
immortalized the name of its inventor. This original 
invention embodied principles of construction which all 
subsequent builders have had to observe. But if the 
mechanical world had settled down to the conclusion 
that Watt's engine was the ne plus ultra of construction, 
then the wizardry of that creative machinery, steam 
and electric-sped, which in our day has multiplied the 
productive power of human industry a thousandfold, 
would be to us unknown. The fact that to-day the seas 
are navigated by palatial fleets, that the lightning express 



RATIONAL READJUSTMENTS 67 

leaps on its path of steel, and that the roar of mighty 
factories fills our cities, is all due to continuous inventive 
progress. Upon the original achievement there have 
been continuously superinduced new improvements, new 
adjustments, new combinations, new potentialities, until 
there has been evolved the majestic leviathan which 
to-day easily and without weariness does the work of 
a multitude of men. 

I take it that this history is but a parable of unlimited 
and undeveloped potentialities which inhere in all the 
social, intellectual, and moral life of the race. An 
imperative need is that all departments of thought and 
motive shall come under the direction of rational rule. 
From immemorial time the emotional side of human 
nature has been at the front. All the mysteries of life 
itself and of outlying nature have been appropriated 
by and interpreted through the emotions. This has 
given room, and especially in connection with man's 
religious instincts, for innumerable vagaries of interpreta- 
tion, for the rise of endless superstitions, for the ghost 
dances that have haunted the night, for magic, for 
bogies, and countless irrationalities which appeal to and 
overawe the credulous mind. The play of nature's 
mysteries upon the untrained emotions has always 
given the medicine man, the soothsayer, and the astrol- 
oger an awesome rank in primitive society. The older 
customs, philosophies, and creeds were largely infused 
with that speculative and uncertain quality which had 
its source in an emotional rather than a rational inter- 
pretation of the universe. The custom may have har- 
dened into law, the philosophy accepted as an authority, 



68 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

the creed most positive in utterance, but they all alike 
asserted their sway over a prescientific habit of mind. 

Truth would require the admission that in no realm 
has the irrational wrought sadder mischief than in that 
of religious thought. Religion has so much to do with 
unseen phenomena, with a supernatural world, its divin- 
ities are so out of sight, and their movements and pur- 
poses so hidden in mystery, as always to make it easy 
for the credulous and imaginative mind to associate with 
religious thought all sorts of elusive notions. The great 
superstitions of the world have nearly all of them been 
domesticated in religious thought. This statement does 
not apply to Christianity at its original sources. Christ, 
let it be reverently said, was the sanest of all religious 
teachers. It might be said that he was strictly scientific 
in his methods. In his teaching, parables, and illus- 
trations he went direct to nature. He enforced his 
lessons by objects most familiar to the experience and 
observation of those whom he taught. But with the 
passage of time, the pure and simple faith of the gospel, 
like a river flowing down from its pure source, became 
much colored and corrupted by the superstitions and 
errors of the ages through which it passed. No truth, 
however perfect in itself, can be lifted higher than the 
highest ideals of its interpreters. The most perfect 
truth ever uttered will itself appear a distorted thing 
when handled only by men mentally and morally astig- 
matized. 

The truth is that Christianity cannot have its fairest 
opportunity, can never realize its rightful supremacy, 
until it makes its advent into a rationally ordered society. 



RATIONAL READJUSTMENTS 69 

The most perfect age of science, when it shall come, 
will prove the age of most triumphant faith. Aside 
from the supreme mission of the gospel, the most vital 
and hopeful prophecy of the present is contained in the 
steady and sure progress of scientific thought. Science, 
in a very saving sense, is rationalizing the age. Its 
reign will be a reign of sanity. Science stands voucher 
for nothing but truth. It insists in its every process 
upon verification. In its own spirit it is never dogmatic 
about its hypotheses. If it cannot test its question 
by one hypothesis, that hypothesis is abandoned and 
another resorted to until the result sought is found. 
Science rests in no theories, no professions. It rests 
in nothing save the verified result. In its character 
simply as an exorciser science is a supreme benefaction 
to mankind. It is gradually but surely banishing from 
the human imagination ghosts, witches, hobgoblins, 
bogies, evil shades, demons, which have for so long 
haunted and frightened the spirit of ordinary mortals. 

Science is a great clarifier of thought, a great revealer 
of knowledge. It refuses to allow myth to pass for 
anything but itself. It strips fable of every meaning 
except its own. It does not allow itself to be misled 
by tricks of speech or figures of rhetoric. It insists 
upon knowing the exact truth. It has the finest sense 
for detecting plagiarism and imposition. From the 
world of faith it is banishing superstitions and false 
traditions. Science makes no protest against the healthy 
artistic imagination, nor against its creations as seen 
on canvas or in statue. No more does it make protest 
against the legitimate life of faith and worship. But 



70 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

it does strip faith of all false appendages. It insists 
that religion divested of error and superstition shall 
go forth upon its mission clad only in its own intrinsic 
perfections, radiant in its own beauty. 

Science is the great builder of modern civilization. 
It is the creator of the modern mercantile world. It 
has gridironed the continents with railroads, has peopled 
the seas with steamsped fleets, and has corraled the 
whole world into a close community of common intel- 
ligence and interests by lightning telegraphy. It has 
created the new industrial world, transferred the burden 
of industry from the strain of human muscle to machin- 
ery, thereby multiplying the products of consumption 
a thousandfold. It has created and systematized the 
agencies of intelligence for every department of human 
knowledge. The spade of the archaeologist has uncovered 
the remains of most ancient civilizations, and has so 
unearthed the data of their customs, laws, literatures, 
and religions as to enable the modern scholar to know 
more of their history than did their very contemporaries 
of the far-off ages. We may not know more specifically 
of Athens than did Pericles, but of the ancient world 
as a whole we have a vastly more perfect knowledge 
than was ever possible to him. Science makes us con- 
temporaneous with all ages. And what is true of the 
ancient world is immeasurably more true of our knowl- 
edge as applied to the civilizations of to-day. There 
is no nation so remote or obscure as not to be visualized 
to common knowledge. Much is known of the dwellers 
of uttermost islands, of the dwarfs in African wildernesses, 
and of the most isolated tribes in the northernmost 



RATIONAL READJUSTMENTS 71 

wilds of America. The great civilizations of the Orient 
are no longer remote from the nations of the West. 
The ends of the earth are bound together in the closest 
interests of mutual commerce. The great universities 
of America hold endowed chairs of the Asiatic languages 
and literatures. The philosophies and cults of the 
East, as set forth by native masters, are luminously 
translated into the Western languages. The field of 
universal religion is exhaustively studied. The science 
of comparative religion has yielded a vast wealth of 
information concerning God's dealings with mankind, 
has greatly revised many earlier notions of Christian 
people relating to the heathen world, and has done 
much to prepare the way of the Christian teacher for 
successful work among pagan peoples. The history, 
the philosophies, the ethnologies of all races are now 
accessible to the student. 

The scientific knowledge of nature is a modern achieve- 
ment. The telescope has carried the vision of the ob- 
server into the infinities and has annihilated the boun- 
daries of the physical universe. Microscopy reveals to 
our knowledge a cosmos peopled with infinite families 
of minute and marvelous life both unknown and un- 
dreamed of in the prescientific times. The processes 
of aeonic world-building have been traced, and are trans- 
lated by our cosmic and geological sciences. Repre- 
sentative fauna and flora of all strata and ages, so far 
as accessible, are on exhibition in our museums of natural 
history. The animal life of land and sea has been cap- 
tured, studied, classified. 

In these later days man himself, physiologically, 



72 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

psychologically, in everything covering the entire range 
of his being, has become the subject of most intensive 
study. The natural development of childhood, the 
proper pedagogy of child-training, the processes of 
adult minds, normal and abnormal — indeed, everything 
included in the range of man's mental history — all is 
reduced to a rational philosophy. There is no longer 
left in human nature even a playground for the witches. 
Man in all his diversified life sees himself reflected as 
never before in the mirror of his own science. 

In times comparatively recent, much has been said 
and written with reference to an assumed antagonism 
between science and religion. This assumption, happily, 
is losing place in clear thought. Science proceeds on 
the basis of verified fact. Religion, it is assumed, is 
largely a matter of faith. But fundamentally, as be- 
tween the verified bases of science and the effective 
faith of religion, there is not the real difference which 
many have imagined. Even the verifications of religion 
are experimental. Religious faith tests itself by the 
acceptance of hypotheses. In Christian life the knowl- 
edge, the experience of the truth comes from the doing 
of the revealed duty. The experience of the saints 
keeps the Christian faith alive. Christ living, and 
constantly witnessing himself, in the hearts of his people, 
is the one superlative fact which makes Christianity 
a growing and irresistible power in the earth. Of course, 
aside from truth confirmed by experience, there are 
important doctrines of Christianity which appeal to 
faith in a way not admitting of present experimental 
verification. But such doctrines all stand in rational 



RATIONAL READJUSTMENTS 73 

harmony with the verified truths of faith, and so may 
be reasonably accepted. It is, however, true that the 
faith which we call Christian would itself perish had it 
no corroborations in the living experiences of believers. 

Science also shows its faith by its obedience. In 
order to possess itself of the truth it submits itself with 
all carefulness to the test of hypothesis. And, if one 
hypothesis fails, it perseveringly resorts to another 
and to another test until the truth sought is not only 
discovered, but demonstrated. And so it may be said, 
though obviously from different bases, that both reli- 
gion and science are subjects of faith, and both are exper- 
imental. The quest of science can be conducted only 
by the requisition of many qualities which in themselves 
are essential to the Christian life. "Science requires 
patience, diligence, accuracy, honesty, self-control, self- 
forgetfulness, willingness to take risks and to endure." 1 

In service rendered science is proving itself more and 
more a beneficent ally of Christianity. If to bring to 
the world the kingdom of Christ is the mission of Chris- 
tianity — a kingdom of brotherhood, of righteousness, of 
mutual service and helpfulness, of sanity, of truth and 
enlightenment among men — then science may be justly 
rated as one of the most effective agencies of such a 
consummation. 

Among the distinctive services of science none are 
worthy of greater emphasis than the part it has played 
in promoting the spirit of mental honesty among men. 
Science, while insisting that no mystery is too sacred 
for its investigation, no obscurity too formidable for 

1 Ames, The Psychology of Religious Experience, p. 412. 



74 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

its undertaking, has absolutely no tolerance for any 
motive or method employed in conscious deviation 
from the truth. Doubtless many, known as scientists, 
have on occasion and in the name of science, appeared 
as special pleaders. But by so much they have been 
unscientific. The supreme quest of science is truth 
itself. But truth responds only to truthful processes. 

The general trend of scientific service is totally in 
the direction of the world's betterment. For the farmer 
it analyzes his soils, indicates their required fertilizers, 
and enables him to multiply their productiveness. To 
the stock-raiser it furnishes the eugenics for breeding 
the choicest types of horses and cattle. It floods the 
darkness of the city with electric lighting, sends pure 
water for domestic uses into every dwelling, and by 
methods conserving the general health discharges the 
city's sewage to the seas. As heretofore indicated, it 
has manifolded the productiveness of labor by the crea- 
tion of machinery. In the street car and the auto- 
mobile it has provided available and expeditious methods 
of local transportation for all classes. It gives promise 
of early solving the problem of aerial navigation. In- 
deed, in the entire realm of instrumental utilities there 
seems hardly a conceivable need which has not met 
with response from scientific skill. 

There is no department in which the beneficent and 
healing mission of science is more manifest than in 
that of surgery and medicine. It enables the surgeon 
to perform miracles of physical relief and cure. It 
has driven the scourge of yellow fever from cities like 
Havana and New Orleans, and has banished typhoid 



RATIONAL READJUSTMENTS 75 

from the armies. The Panama Canal belt, a region 
of natural pestilence and peril to life, it has transformed 
into one of the most sanitary of habitable zones. It 
has hunted the germs of contagious and fatal diseases, 
discovered their antitoxins, and confidently predicts the 
day as not far distant when these great infections may 
be no longer feared. 

Science, in all fields of its work, is serving human 
interests, widening knowledge, extending its sway over 
natural forces, and establishing for man in all relations 
a rational view of life. Its forces are active in all fields 
that attract human interest. In Africa, in the Orient, 
or wherever, on earth or sea, there are unique objects 
of study, there some intrepid scientist, with gun and 
camera, or whatever outfit required, is doing his work. 
Experts will continue to push their investigations into 
all fields and into every department until nature has 
surrendered her last revealable secret, and the knowledge 
thus gained will be more and more the common wealth 
and the common sanity of mankind. 

Scientific knowledge will be regulative of the future. 
Philosophy, enriched and aided by this knowledge, 
while broad enough to embrace all the practical phases 
of thought and life, will be rational and sane in its proc- 
esses and conclusions. Theology, no longer a system of 
cheerless logical architecture erected on a basis of 
arbitrary assumptions about God, but feeding itself 
vitally on the Divine Fatherhood as revealed in Jesus 
Christ, will come to such coordination with the best 
teachings of life and experience as to make most con- 
vincing appeal to enlightened reason. The Bible itself, 



76 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

under the critical illumination of a constructive scientific 
spirit, can no longer be manipulated or monopolistically 
interpreted in the interests of any special theology or 
ecclesiasticism. A reverent scientific criticism will yield 
to the entire world all that is possible to be known from 
a literary, historical, or chronological standpoint about 
the Bible. Biblical literature will be redeemed in pop- 
ular thought from all traditions which have made of it 
a mere wonder-literature, a fetish to be worshiped, or 
which have loaded it with theories of inspiration, 
inerrancy, and infallibility which it was never meant 
to carry, and which it has never claimed for itself. 

The world is moving into an ever-enlarging enlighten- 
ment. Before the increasing light, error and super- 
stition, all things akin to astrology, necromancy, sooth- 
saying, sorcery, and relic- worship, will pass to the limbo 
of a credulous and superseded age. It matters not 
how strongly intrenched in past usages, how seemingly 
impregnable the organism in which they dwell, systems 
and beliefs that are radically out of harmony with the 
world's growing enlightenment must finally disappear. 

From what has been said it might possibly be hastily 
concluded by some that man's religion is destined to 
be swallowed up in mere scientific thought. Infinitely 
untrue. Religiousness is the greatest fact of man's 
being. With Sabatier, it must be said, "He is incurably 
religious." The fact and importance of man's spiritual 
nature will ever loom more largely upon the world's 
thought. It would be a poor comment on God's great 
masterpiece — man — to assume that that which in him 
is most Godlike, his spirituality, should deteriorate in 



RATIONAL READJUSTMENTS 77 

proportion as his mind is illumined with knowledge. 
Tennyson was not less a poet because he had a sane 
appreciation of the largest science of his time. The 
assumption that man's spiritual nature must shine less 
perfectly because his mind is enriched with rational 
knowledge would be preposterous. The more valuable 
our religion the more certain is it to be rational. God is 
not a juggler. He who is the Father of our spiritual 
nature is also the Creator of the mental and physical 
laws which are so fundamental to our very being. 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM 



79 



"Teach me the truth, Lord, though it put to flight 
My fairest dreams and fondest fancy's play; 
Teach me to know the darkness from the light, 
The night from day." 

At the present time it is no use trying to kill modern views of the Bible. 
If you are going to try to kill them, you must kill scholarship first. If 
you were to turn all of us out of our chairs in England, you could not 
find other men with adequate scholarship, holding different views of the 
Bible, to fill them.— Professor James Hope Moulton. 

As the critical view of Scripture comes to its own, it will be possible 
for the ripe fruits of reverent Bible study to be made accessible in a way 
which at present is not possible. For my own part I may say that 
criticism has never attracted me for its own sake. The all-important 
thing for the student of the Bible is to pierce to the core of its meaning. 
Now, since it has pleased God to give us his revelation in the form of a 
history, it is necessary for us to approach its interpretation by a historical 
path. But no history can be scientific, in accordance, that is, with the 
truth of things, unless it critically examines its documents and the material 
they enshrine. Thus criticism becomes for the interpreter of Scripture, 
not a task he may decline at his will, but an obvious duty that he dare 
not shirk. — Dr. Arthur S. Peake. 

The Scriptures either are or are not fit subjects for scholarship. If 
they are not, then all sacred scholarship has been, and is, a mistake, and 
they are a body of literature possessed of the inglorious distinction of 
being incapable of being understood. If they are, then the more scientific 
the scholarship the greater its use in the field of Scripture, and the more 
it is reverently exercised on a literature that can claim to be the preeminent 
sacred literature of the world the more will that literature be honored. 
—Principal A. M. Fairbairn. 



80 



CHAPTER V 

BIBLICAL CRITICISM 

Intolerance is a spirit so easily harbored as almost 
to make it seem native to the human mind. It shows 
itself in all realms of opinion, in social customs, in pol- 
itics, in religion, but nowhere more so than in religion. 
There are those both in and out of the Church for whom 
the exposition of any truth in collision with their fixed 
belief would prove entirely useless. The positiveness of 
such minds in asserting their own opinions is likely 
to be equaled only by their intolerance of the opinions 
of others. 

There are those, however, who fear that the present- 
day Church is largely shorn of spiritual power because 
of the work of "biblical criticism.' ' This view, however 
invalid, may merit consideration on account of the 
sincerity of those whom it disturbs. That the science 
of historical and literary criticism, now of secure stand- 
ing, has in recent decades had large application in the 
examination of the Sacred Scriptures is too historic 
to need reaffirmation. 

That the continuous publicity, much of it sheer 

caricature, which pro and con has been given to biblical 

criticism, has resulted in dislodging some minds from 

their inherited views cannot be denied. The unsettling 

of inherited views has always followed in the wake of 

progressive thought. The intellectual world never pitches 

81 



82 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

its camp on new territory without leaving on its trail 
a certain contingent of mind whose mental repose has 
been painfully disturbed. When men are thrown out 
of their life-long ruts of thought by the dynamic of a 
new, or by a new application of an old, truth, there is 
no known law which will save them from a sensation 
of mental dislodgment. The inevitable unsettling of 
cherished and restful beliefs is a part of the price and 
the risk which the race has always had to assume in 
its intellectual and moral advances into new fields of 
truth. From this viewpoint the price of biblical crit- 
icism has been costly. 

It may not be unfitting that we should briefly trace 
some of the historic phases of the critical movement. 
And at the outset we must remind ourselves that the 
kind of criticism which has been applied to the Bible 
is precisely the same as that which has been applied 
to all important ancient, and even more modern, literature. 
The science of criticism was not created primarily with 
reference to the Sacred Scriptures. 

It is to be feared that they who at offhand condemn 
the application to the Bible of modern critical methods 
are themselves not well informed concerning the ante- 
cedent conditions in the case. It is to be remembered 
that for a thousand years prior to the Reformation the 
people had well-nigh no access to the Bible. An "in- 
fallible" Church arrogated to itself the sole interpreta- 
tion of this Book for mankind. Early in the Christian 
centuries, largely through the influence of the Ante- 
Nicene Fathers, the methods of biblical interpretation 
became mystical and allegorical to a degree that prac- 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM 83 

tically shrouded from human view most of what now 
appears to us as the plain sense of the Scriptures. 

The theological teaching of the Church was not so 
much a reflection of Bible truth as it was of patristic 
homilies and of human interpretation, a great burden 
of which in the light of most reverent vision is now seen 
to be grotesquely absurd. The literature of the Bible 
was not studied grammatically nor in the light of its 
proper historic setting. The Bible, and with an inter- 
pretation adapted to the purpose, was principally used 
to bolster and to give sanction to the usages and teach- 
ings of the Church. Hedged in by an artificial and 
mystical interpretation which largely disguised and 
nullified their real message, a close prisoner in the keep- 
ing of an infallible Church, the Scriptures themselves 
had almost no opportunity to speak forth their own 
truth. Such messages as they purported to give were 
those of patristic allegory and mysticism rather than 
the plain utterances of Jesus Christ and his apostles. 

These ages, moreover, were characterized by a great 
dearth of learning. Science, in the modern sense of 
the term, was well-nigh unknown. History was a neg- 
ligible quantity. The great cities of the past had fallen 
into ruin. The wide continent, for the most part, was 
divided between the wilderness, the rival camps of 
feudalism, and lawless marauders. Even in the Church 
itself the man of real learning was the exception. Among 
bishops and priests alike there was almost universal 
ignorance of the original languages in which the Sacred 
Scriptures appeared. While there were other versions in 
whole or in part, yet for centuries the chief Bible in use, 



84 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

even in the Church, was the Latin Vulgate — itself a 
very defective version of the original Scriptures. The 
first complete Greek Testament given to the world was 
that prepared by Erasmus in the sixteenth century. 
Ignorance, dense and superstitious, cast its dark shadows 
far and near over the entire continent of Europe. The 
term "Dark Ages" may have been in some sense over- 
worked. But in contrast with the intellectual splendors 
of our own age, it would seem difficult to find a more 
fitting term by which to describe the intellectual con- 
ditions which prevailed in Europe for a millennium of 
years prior to the Reformation. 

Of the Church throughout these desolate ages it 
should be said that, however egregious and false many 
of its claims, however despotic its rule, however great 
the abuses to which it loaned its sanction, however 
impure was much of its guiding life, however perversive 
its interpretation of the plain gospel of Jesus Christ — 
yet, on the whole, the rule of this Church over the peoples 
of Europe through all these dark and turbulent centuries 
must be stamped as beneficent. Without the reign of 
the Church it is impossible to surmise what would have 
become of the world itself. The Church was immeas- 
urably far from ideally representing the spirit and mis- 
sion of its Master. But it was the one and only power 
whose authority was universally heeded in these ages, 
and as no other power it did represent the authority 
of heaven, it thrust the sanction of eternal things upon 
the popular view, and as another Moses coming straight 
from the flames and thunderings of Sinai, it held 
over these rough ages restraints and regulations which 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM 85 

seemed to utter themselves as from the very lips of 
God. 

The Church, for these Middle Ages, may not 
unfittingly be likened to a big uniformed policeman of 
Providence. It wore the badges of highest sanction, 
it embodied in itself the highest authority known to 
the human imagination. It carried at its girdle the 
weapons of most fearful retribution against the dis- 
obedient, and it gave highest pledges of eternal safety 
and reward to all obedient citizens. This policeman 
himself was far from ideal. He was despotic, arrogant, 
overbearing, oftentimes savagely misusing his authority, 
often grossly unjust, often under guise of sanctity com- 
mitting nameless outrage against heaven. Yet, on the 
whole, we look back upon him as the one historic figure 
without whose guiding hand the civilizations of the 
Middle Ages could never have been piloted over into 
the rich heritage of our modern world. 

Such, in general, was the condition of Christendom 
until the breaking forth of the Reformation in the six- 
teenth century. The Reformation was a widely con- 
tagious and powerful protest against the assumptions, 
the despotisms, and the corruptions of a Church which 
for centuries had asserted a heaven-ordained and in- 
fallible authority over the mind and conscience of Europe. 
Whatever else may be said about the Reformation, it 
is safe to say that it was the rock against which were 
fatally shattered the claims of an infallible papacy. 

But the Reformation, however great as a movement, 
was very far from working the intellectual emancipation 
of the age. Even the reformers themselves remained 



86 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

under mental bondage to many inherited ideas, ideas 
which it would require a more enlightened age to illu- 
minate, to revise, or displace. Indeed, while the reform- 
ers stoutly challenged the authority of the Church in 
its use and interpretation of the Scriptures, it did not 
at all enter into their purpose to institute a critical 
examination of either the historic or literary character 
of the Bible. It was not accepted as even a part of 
their mission to question acutely the great body of tra- 
ditional lore which underlay the accepted views of the 
sacred books in their day. However vastly important 
its mission, it was still not the mission of the Reformation 
to call into being a school competent for the task and 
eager for the work of giving an adequate critical study 
to the historical and literary character of the Bible. 
Even the age of the Reformation, luminous as it was, 
was not ripe for such a movement. 

Not until in the latter part of the eighteenth century 
were the conditions ripe for a real science of historical 
and literary criticism. It was at this period that the 
human reason came fearlessly and invincibly to assert 
its own inherent and independent right to investigate 
and to know for itself. This was the period when the 
treasured fund of age-long traditions went into bank- 
ruptcy. A significant feature of this new intellectual 
era was that its leaders were laymen. 

This era may be characterized as one largely skeptical, 
at least one of profound and fearless mental inquiry. 
In its atmosphere no dogma was revered simply because 
it was enshrined in hoary traditions, no ecclesiastical 
interpretations were accepted as true simply on the 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM S 7 

long-standing sanction of priest or council. About the 
only infallibility recognized was that which inhered in 
the human intellect itself. A passion of investigation 
was begotten which could be satisfied with nothing short 
of knowing the truth and the whole truth about every 
subject interrogated. 

In this new atmosphere all ancient records and lit- 
eratures were subjected to most critical reexamination. 
Their historic and literary relations to the countries 
and times in which they originated, the truth or falsity 
of their narratives, the integrity or corruption of the 
texts in which they have come down to us — all these 
features were made the subject of most fearless, 
patient, and exhaustive study. Indeed, this was the 
birth-period of what is now the well-established science 
of historical and literary criticism. 

Now, as a most obvious fact, the Scriptures could not 
escape the application of this new critical inquisition. 
Their very prominence as the most sacred literature 
of the world would inevitably subject them to this process. 
The fact that the men applying the new methods might 
have been skeptical and unbelieving as to the sacred 
character of the Scriptures themselves could really make 
no difference with the final outcome of the case. In 
so far as the Bible was a body of literature, and by so 
much a human product, the new student felt at perfect 
liberty to apply his critical investigations. If the Bible 
is really a divine record, then no amount of critical 
investigation can finally do it harm. If its character 
is attacked and misrepresented by a false skepticism, 
then it simply remains the duty of the Christian defender 



88 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

to expose the falsity of the attack, and to restate the 
grounds for belief in the divinity of the records. And 
this was the process necessitated. 

It is puerile to cry out against the higher criticism 
as such. The scientific criticism of the Bible was as 
inevitable as the movements of Providence. The Church 
would be most recreant to duty not to engage in this 
work. If the Scriptures should be unjustly dealt with 
because of the skeptical and hostile spirit of some of 
the promoters of the new critical movement, this would 
only impose upon the Christian scholar a new obliga- 
tion to expose and to refute the attacks. That Christian 
scholarship should become an active, and in the long 
run the leading, participant in the work of biblical 
scientific criticism was from the very induction of the 
movement itself both a supreme duty and a superlative 
opportunity. 

Biblical criticism developed along two principal lines. 
First, a most exhaustive scrutiny was given to the char- 
acter of the texts through which the Scriptures have 
been transmitted. The new critics turned their atten- 
tion naturally to a dogma which had been accepted 
alike by the mediaeval and the Reformation Churches, 
namely, the infallibility, the inerrant inspiration, of the 
Scriptures themselves. A critical examination and com- 
parison of the various texts promptly revealed the fact 
of many variants in these texts, and consequently gave 
room to challenge the long-cherished dogma of the 
plenary verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. Since the 
beginning of modern biblical criticism there have come 
to light many hitherto concealed manuscripts, especially 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM 89 

of the New Testament, all of which have contributed 
to a larger interest in textual study. When the great 
work of Westcott and Hort in producing their Greek 
Testament was undertaken, it was then conceded that 
the textual variations between manuscripts at their 
disposal numbered not less than one hundred and fifty 
thousand. Surely, a very great number ! — yet all testify- 
ing to the supreme importance which the Church has 
attached to the preservation of the New Testament 
Scriptures, and furnishing at the same time the best 
possible conditions for the critical ascertainment of 
the correct originals. It may be said in passing that 
large ground of assurance is furnished in the fact that 
"no Christian teaching or duty rests on these portions 
of the text which are affected by differences in the man- 
uscripts, still less is anything essential in Christianity 
touched by the various readings." 1 We may also grate- 
fully add that as the outcome of the most incessant 
and exhaustive studies of all the various texts, the Church 
is doubtless in possession to-day of the most exact repro- 
duction of original texts possible of present attainment. 
It must be admitted, however, that the multitude of 
text variations makes good the challenge of the critics 
against the always extrabiblical dogma of a plenary 
verbal inspiration. 

The second general direction of scientific biblical 
study was that which deals with the historical and 
literary character of the books themselves. The same 
critical principles were applied to the books of the Bible 
as to other literature, and, it must be said, with results 

1 Ezra Abbot. 



9 o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

quite revolutionary, if not destructive of many tradi- 
tional beliefs. The history of this process, which has 
now gone on for a hundred and fifty years, with its 
controversial aspects, its advances and retreats, its 
incalculable labors, the unmeasured light which has 
been thrown upon both the history and literature of 
the Bible, the beneficent reconstructions wrought, the 
rational appeals which its results as thus far reached 
make upon the thoughtful and open mind — all this 
presents a field of exceeding intellectual and moral 
interest, which here must be passed by. 

An age had finally come whose scholarship was ripe 
for treating the books of the Bible purely on the grounds 
of their grammatical, literary, and historical values. 
The allegorical methods of interpretation, which for 
sixteen centuries had mystified the minds of its readers 
and had obscured the real meanings of the Bible, were 
now to be swept away. Traditions and doctrines which 
were not founded upon Scripture facts, but which were 
based upon the dogmas of a papal priesthood, were to 
be dethroned. The Bible, its monkish garments laid 
aside, was to be brought forth from the cloister, and 
under heaven's own sunlight, and in an atmosphere of 
intellectual freedom, was to speak forth its own clear, 
unobscured story to the children of men. 

This, if there ever was such, would seem to have 
been a providentially guided movement. If the Bible 
is a record of God's dealings with, and purposes toward, 
mankind, then, it was preeminently due to this book 
itself — the most important possible of all books — that 
it should have unobstructed opportunity to voice itself. 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM 91 

If the Bible is intended to speak God's thought to the 
human soul, as a man might speak to his fellow, then 
it was due that all that is human in the book — the visions, 
the inspirations, the hopes, the fears, the soul-experiences, 
that live themselves in the human writers of this book 
— should speak at first-hand from its pages. 

All that the Bible needs, all that it ever did need, 
is a clear and unclouded opportunity to declare its own 
history and to deliver its own message to the children 
of men. And this opportunity, far more perfectly than 
ever before, has been afforded by the historico-critical 
movement. It is absurd to make a bogie of "higher 
criticism." Higher criticism in legitimate application is 
an honest attempt to give its subjects absolutely fair 
treatment. It has been well defined as "an effort of 
the mind to see things as they are, to appraise literature 
at its true worth, to judge the records of men's thoughts 
and deeds impartially without obtrusion of personal 
likes or dislikes." It is this process, long and patiently 
applied to both the Old and New Testament literatures, 
which has yielded to the Church and the world the 
priceless products of modern, scientific biblical study. 
The Bible in all its history was never so much studied, 
its yield of inspiration was never so rich, its divine char- 
acter never so luminous and unclouded, as seen in the 
brief period since the birth of the higher criticism. 

For the entire invaluable process of emancipating the 
Bible from the fables of tradition, from unscientific 
dogma, from mystical and meaningless allegory, and 
from the domination of priestly authority, we are more 
indebted to the German than to any other single nation. 



92 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

The German mind is plodding and thorough to the 
last degree. It does not know the mood of surrendering 
a subject until the last question which may inhere in 
the subject itself has been answered. A review of critics 
from Semler to Wellhausen puts before us an illustrious 
procession of the very giants in German scholarship. 
The measure of unremitting toil, of exhaustive investiga- 
tion, which this army of scholars has given to biblical 
problems, is something vast, well-nigh beyond imagina- 
tion. It is safe to say that no subject of scientific 
interest to mankind has received more competent atten- 
tion, more searching investigation, or more patient 
study than that which has been given to biblical problems 
by German scholarship. It is due to say that for 
unbiased study of biblical questions, for their exam- 
ination in the pure white light of rational thought, the 
German University has afforded exceptional opportunity 
to its scholars. Under state management, this uni- 
versity has been the one center inviting free investigation 
of all subjects of thought with immunity from priestly 
censorship and from the fear of ecclesiastical ostracism. 

It must be sadly admitted that the German mind 
has suffered greater reactions from the critical process 
than that of any other people. This general result, 
so far as the German people were concerned, was natural 
and inevitable. In the realm of biblical criticism German 
scholarship was a pioneer. This criticism, pro and con, 
broke upon German thought with startling novelty. 
In its earlier movement it was brilliantly led by skeptical 
and destructive minds, such as Strauss and Bauer. Its 
findings traveled rapidly from the seats of learning 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM 93 

to the thought of the common people. It could not 
be otherwise than greatly disturbing to the common 
faith. To reach matured and measured results such 
as are now quite generally accepted by competent and 
constructive Christian scholarship was a consummation 
requiring time. It is also to be remembered that for 
the evils wrought a constructive Christian scholarship 
was not responsible, while at the same time it is the 
mission of such scholarship to correct these evils. Never- 
theless, it will remain true that the work of Germany 
will ever command a growing appreciation in the world 
of biblical scholarship. 

It would be an incomplete view which would confine 
the researches or conclusions of biblical criticism to 
Germany. On the Continent the scholars of Italy, 
France, and Holland have made brilliant contributions 
to this science. In England and Scotland the names 
of Robertson Smith and S. R. Driver, not to mention 
scores of others, stand in enviable fame as workers in 
this field. If one really desires to know what con- 
tribution American scholarship has made to this world 
subject, let him read the names alone of the contributors 
to two monumental products of modern Christian thought, 
namely, The International Theological Library and that 
greatest commentary of the Bible in English, The Inter- 
national Critical Commentary. 

The fact to be emphasized is that wherever in the 
world to-day there is a commanding scholarship, there 
is also acceptance of the broader results of higher crit- 
icism. As the great Professor Sanday, of Oxford, says, 
"Its conclusions are international and interconfessional." 



94 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

It would be quite gratuitous, as well as false, to assume 
that the history of the critical process, first and last, 
has not been characterized by a wide diversity of both 
opinion and motive. Indeed, it may be said that the 
movement in its earlier stages was largely negative, if 
not destructive, in its aim. Men of all beliefs and 
nonbeliefs espoused its work. Men who were foes to 
an inspired faith naturally took advantage of all evidence 
which they could turn against a traditional orthodoxy, 
or by which they thought they might undermine the 
proofs of the Scripture as the record of a divine revela- 
tion. To admit this is only to concede a feature which 
has been true in the history of all intellectual con- 
troversies. There has been no scientific discovery which 
some have not sought to wrest against accepted theories 
of truth. This, upon the one hand. On the other 
hand, nothing in the history of thought is more obvious 
than that traditional theories and dogmas have been 
in innumerable cases forced to give place to new views 
of truth as resulting from new studies. 

The fact, however, that merits all emphasis to-day 
is, that biblical criticism, which has now reached the 
status of a science, is no longer, if ever, in control of 
negative or destructive minds. The vast work of biblical 
criticism as now conducted is in the hands of the most 
able, expert, and constructive scholars of the entire 
Christian Church. 

Another fact, freely to be admitted, is that the mission 
of biblical criticism is as yet far from complete. There 
are a multitude of minor questions still in solution, 
questions on which the most expert either hold them- 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM 95 

selves in suspense, or on which they have not as yet 
reached grounds of agreement. The silence or the dis- 
agreement of critics on many questions can furnish no 
just ground for surprise. The data for the critical 
settlement of many questions are still undiscovered, 
or, at best, most obscure. It is wonderful, however, 
and occasion for devout gratitude, with what success 
modern scientific research is uncovering the evidence 
which more and more must decide the at present un- 
settled questions of biblical criticism. 

Having said so much, I now call attention to the 
larger other side of this question, a side which merits 
all prominence. It would be a great mistake for any 
to assume that the fundamental principles and the larger 
territory of biblical criticism are not already secure. 
For a hundred and fifty years, and especially and pre- 
eminently for the latter part of this period, this task 
has engaged the ablest scholarship of the Church. No 
field in the entire history of human thought has been 
more expertly or exhaustively examined than this. 
The result is that there have been reached wide agree- 
ments as to fundamental principles, and the larger 
territories within which all the lesser questions must 
be explored and settled have been clearly outlined. 
The supreme battle of Christian biblical criticism has 
already been fought and decisively won. It is only 
those who have neglected to avail themselves of the 
abundant sources of information who will have the 
hardihood to deny the facts. 

A statement of detailed results secured would prove 
too voluminous for our present treatment. In the 



9 6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

field of the Old Testament, I know of no more concise 
or complete summary of these results than that pre- 
sented by Dr. James Strachan, a richly furnished biblical 
writer of Edinburgh. In the New Cyclopedia of Re- 
ligion and Ethics, he says of Old Testament criticism: 

It has reconstructed the history of Israel in the light of that other 
modern principle — "There is no history but critical history." For the 
incredible dogmas of verbal inspiration and the equal divinity of all parts 
of Scripture it has substituted a credible conception of the Bible as the 
sublime record of the divine education of the human race. It has traced 
the development of the religious conceptions and institutions of Israel 
in a rational order. Moving the Old Testament's center of gravity from 
the Law to the Prophets, it has proved that the history of Israel is fun- 
damentally and essentially the history of prophecy. It has made a 
sharp and clear distinction between historical and imaginative writing 
in the Old Testament, and so enhanced the real value of both. It has 
appreciated the simple idylls of Israel's folklore, pervaded and purified 
as they are by the spirit of the earlier prophets, and used by them to 
transfuse the devotion of a higher faith into the veins of the people. It 
has thrown light — as Astruc saw that it would — on the many duplicate, 
and even contradictory, accounts of the same events that are found in 
close juxtaposition. It has explained the moral and theological crudities 
of the Bible as the early phases of a gradual religious evolution. It has 
denuded the desert pilgrimage of literary glory only in order to enrich 
the exile. For the "Psalms of David" it has substituted the "Hymn 
book of the Second Temple," into which are garnered the fruits of the 
religious thought and feeling of centuries. To the legendary wisdom 
of one crowned head it has preferred the popular philosophy of many 
generations. For a religious history which looked like an inverted pyra- 
mid, it has given us one which is comparable to an ever-broadening stream 
— the record of a winding but unwavering progress in the moral and 
religious consciousness of a people. Instead of crowding the most com- 
plex institutions and ideals into the infancy of the nation, it has followed 
the order of nature — "first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn 
in the ear." 

In the field of the New Testament the critical process 
has come as near as present conditions of human knowl- 
edge will permit to the settlement of the synoptic prob- 
lem; has thrown a flood of light upon the writings of 



BIBLICAL CRITICISM 97 

Saint Paul and upon his life and times; has established 
the probability as nearly as all accessible evidence may 
affirm that all the present writings of the New Testament 
were produced within the first century. The secured 
canonicity of some of the lesser epistles, such as Jude, 
Second Peter, Second and Third John, are still open 
questions, as they were when the New Testament canon 
itself was formed. Upon questions of the authorship 
and the dates of the Johannine writings more micro- 
scopic scrutiny has been concentrated in the last twenty- 
five years than through all the preceding Christian 
centuries. 

Professor Sanday, a foremost authority on the fourth 
Gospel, says that it is without doubt the latest of the 
Gospels and is written with a knowledge of the other 
three. In his view, "It is a retrospect by a writer of 
commanding position and authority, presupposing what 
has been already done, but adding to it from the stores 
of his own experience and reflection." It is with him 
an open question whether its author is to be identified 
with John, the son of Zebedee, though he leans to the 
probability that he was the same. In any case, he has 
no doubt that the author of the fourth Gospel had been 
a personal disciple and follower of our Lord, though 
a youthful one. It must be conceded, I think, that 
concerning the fourth Gospel, the Apocalypse and the 
First Epistle of John, some unanswered questions still 
remain. 

Well, finally, it may be asked: What is the value 
of it all? If to have the most luminous and accurate 
knowledge possible of the historic foundations of our 



98 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

faith; if to have a Bible purged of priestly fables, of 
mystifying allegorical interpretations, of false traditions 
and of unscientific constructions; if so to clear the entire 
field of traditional false conception as to permit the 
Scriptures to speak directly to us from the background 
of their own grammatical and historical settings; if to 
have accessible to every Bible reader the most correct 
texts which human study can give, and the most perfect 
historical environment possible of reproduction; if to 
hear and to know the words of Christ, if to see his his- 
toric image, more perfectly than has ever been permitted 
to any generation of his followers; if to walk in vivid 
historical companionship with his apostles; if to have 
at our command a more rational and defensible view 
of the Bible as an inspired record of God's dealing with, 
of his purposes toward, mankind — if there be high value 
in all these things, then, the biblical critical movement 
will take its permanent place in history as one of the 
most significant and beneficent in the providential 
scheme of the world. 



SECULARIZED EDUCATION 



99 



Most nations make some provision for religious instruction in their 
state systems; but in the United States, where there is most complete 
separation of church and state, there is practically no official provision 
in the grammar and high schools and in the State universities for religious 
instruction or for the inculcation of the religious spirit. — Dr. Thomas 
Nicholson. 

There can be no true and complete education without religion; to 
provide adequate religious instruction for their children is the duty of 
the churches, a primal and imperative duty. The hour at Sunday school, 
the religious exercises of the public school and the ethical instruction 
of the public school, through the personal influence of the great body 
of religious public school teachers, do not meet the requirements of adequate 
religious instruction. To provide religious instruction for their chil- 
dren is not only the duty of churches, it is their inherited and inherent 
right, and this right should be recognized by the State in its arrange- 
ment of the course of school studies. — The Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America. 

It is tremendously important that school administrations come quickly 
to some understanding about what they are going to do with the spiritual 
apprehensions of childhood. The unspoiled mind of the child has for 
its first right all-roundedness of training. To rob it of that right know- 
ingly is a species of highwayry. . . . Ten to eighteen years of school drill, 
and ten to eighteen years of silence about a cosmic instinct puts the youth- 
ful mind in a state of indifference to religious issues. It considers them 
academic — or purely questions of preference and sentiment. The first 
result of such a policy is to take from the Church its rightful power of 
approach to the school- trained mind; but the full pathos of the situation 
is in the fact that when the educated thought of this country has come 
to the conclusion that the religious life is of no value to itself it has come 
to madness! — Dr. William R. Halstead. 



ioo 



CHAPTER VI 
SECULARIZED EDUCATION 

Foremost among the forces which tend to turn 
American life away from a reverent spirituality is the 
secular spirit which so largely prevails in our educational 
systems. The well-nigh universal secularization of edu- 
cation has proven a destructive foe to spirituality. As 
compared with this influence, the higher criticism, even 
though it had to be adjudged as evil, is but an infant 
in its cradle. 

America, and m one of the most phenomenal eras in 
history, has tried on a national scale the policy of a 
"free church in a free state." Here religion receives 
no State endowments. All that the State undertakes 
is simply to protect religion in its rights of worship. 
The Church must absolutely depend upon itself for its 
own life, its own support. In our public school system 
many diverse influences have been operative insistently 
and increasingly demanding that the educational work 
of the schools shall be conducted without Bible study, 
without worship, and with the entire elimination of 
distinctively Christian teaching. 

I do not arraign the public schools on their secular 
side. Their teachers, for the most part, are persons 
of character, of intelligence, of ability. The standards 
of scholarship are creditable, and with a tendency to 
increasing strenuency of demand. The intellectual prod- 

IOI 



io2 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

uct of the schools as a whole is well reflected in the rank 
and file of American citizenship. These schools encourage 
mental thoroughness, energy and honesty of purpose, 
and they have contributed beyond measure to the in- 
telligence and manliness of our national life. 

But toward the creation and promotion of spiritual 
ideals, toward the distinctive education of the religious 
nature, it cannot be claimed that they have made a 
corresponding contribution. Is not failure, however, in 
these very respects one of the most disastrous that could 
be charged against any educational system? 

A recent writer 1 most pertinently says that a true 
civilization must realize and build upon certain primary 
elements of human nature, and with the understanding 
that these elements are mutually religious and inseparable. 
He names the sexual instinct, upon which is built the 
institution of the family; man's natural thirst for knowl- 
edge, which brings about educational institutions; the 
social instinct, which expresses itself in civil society; 
and finally the instinct of worship, which in its institu- 
tions designs a provision for the responses in the human 
spirit to the nature of the universe and to God. 

These four things in proper correlation will be found 
under analysis to cover the requirements of an ideal 
civilization. But, this being so, what is to be thought 
of a civilization whose educational system builds with- 
out reference to the spiritual and worshipful nature 
of a nation's youth? The Roman Catholic Church 
is guided by a true instinct when it insists upon educating 
its own youth in the parochial schools. Her authorities 

1 W. R. Halstead, A Cosmic Review of Religion. 



SECULARIZED EDUCATION 103 

know that the enlightened secular spirit of our public 
schools is fatal to the claims of the Catholic Church. 

But with Protestantism, and with civilization as a 
whole, the question is far larger and other than that 
of simply holding young life to the forms and doctrines 
of a particular historic Church. It is a question of the 
neglect or the culture of the most vital and sacred poten- 
tiality in human nature — in the last resort, the relation 
of human life to God. Give the child over for the twelve 
or fifteen years of its educational life to mere secular 
ideals and methods, with only at best the most incidental 
teaching and training for its spiritual nature, and you 
have a character whose spiritual faculties are submerged. 
But this is the very thing we have been doing for a series 
of generations. The result has brought spiritual atrophy 
into many homes. Home religion is decadent. The 
family altar has gone out of fashion. Parents, victims 
of their own secular education, are not alive to the su- 
preme importance of spiritual training for their children.. 

Of course there is a large contingent of American 
homes in which this secularizing process has not prevailed. 
But in so far as it has prevailed it utters everywhere 
a menace not only against its individual subjects but 
against our very civilization itself. A godless civiliza- 
tion cannot endure. It is a perversion in the earth, 
a reversion from the trends of moral evolution. 

The American public, secular school system viewed 
in itself is something majestic. It will be formative 
and decisive of most momentous destinies in our civiliza- 
tion. But in its monopoly of educational methods, a 
monopoly which neglects a recognition of the spiritual 



104 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

nature of childhood, it is an enormous departure from 
the historic methods of the Christian centuries. It is 
to be accepted without saying that organized public 
education, both in extent and quality, is a vastly different 
thing in the twentieth century from that which was 
either conceived or possible in most of the preceding 
centuries. The unmeasured growth in just the recent 
past of a scientific knowledge of the universe has in- 
calculably enriched the scope of educational studies. 
Both in the measure of topics to be taught and in im- 
proved pedagogical methods the modern education has 
immense advantage over its predecessor. But in the 
single and most vital matter of religious education no 
other system has been characterized by such neglect 
as that of our own American public school system. 

The value which Christianity has always set upon 
the spiritual training of childhood is rooted in the very 
incidents of New Testament history. Christ took little 
children up in his arms and blessed them, making them 
the very types of his kingdom, and declaring that of 
such is the kingdom of heaven. Timothy is the most 
beautiful character of all Paul's associates, the one 
doubtless to whom he was personally most attached. 
Paul loved him as his own son in the gospel. The Chris- 
tian value of Timothy is largely accounted for in the 
fact that from his infancy, both by his mother and his 
grandmother, he was trained in a knowledge of the 
Scriptures. 

In patristic history we trace the moral greatness of 
many of the great Fathers, such as Basil, Gregory of 
Nazianzen, Chrysostom and Augustine, to careful spiritual 



SECULARIZED EDUCATION 105 

training in their childhood by Christian mothers. It 
was of Arethusa, mother of Chrysostom, that Libanius, 
the foremost literary man of the heathen world in his 
day, said, "Ah, gods of Greece, what wonderful women 
there are among the Christians!" Augustine, up to his 
day the mightiest intellectual successor of Saint Paul 
in the Christian Church, though he had entered far 
upon a career of error and libertinism, was never able 
to escape the teaching and example of his godly mother, 
Monica. During the Middle Ages, such education as 
existed was conducted under the auspices of the Church, 
and one of the central features of that education was 
the catechetical religious training of children. After 
the Reformation, wherever the influence of Luther and 
his coadjutors prevailed, there was established a sys- 
tematic religious education of childhood. "In 1520 
Luther demanded that the chief subject taught in the 
schools should be the Holy Scriptures. ... In the country 
districts around Wurtemburg it was prescribed as early 
as 1528 that the sexton in every village should be re- 
quired to give instruction on week days in the Command- 
ments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer, and also in 
the singing of hymns. Parents were required to send 
their children to this instruction. The sexton thus came 
into prominence as the pastor's assistant in the villages." 1 
The real founder of the public school was August 
Hermann Francke. "His system included the study of 
nature, and provided for manual training, for girls as 
well as boys. . . . In 1763 Frederick the Great adopted 
his system for Prussia." 2 But the matter of chief em- 

1 Religious Education and the Public School, Dr. George U. Wenner. 2 Ibid. 



io6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

phasis in Francke's system was religious. The Church 
is the fruitful mother of an illustrious progeny. She 
is really the mother of popular education. In all her 
counsels, services and sacrifices, she has reenforced and 
fostered the policies of liberal and popular enlighten- 
ment. 

It would seem a thing most anomalous that the Amer- 
ican republic, a land first peopled by refugees from 
religious intolerance, a nation whose very corner stone 
was dedicated to the Christian religion and to the rights 
of man, should, among nominal Christian nations, be 
most prominent in eliminating religious instruction 
from her vast system of public education. In the main- 
tenance of such a policy there is perpetrated an enor- 
mous injustice against Christianity, that religious faith, 
to which more than to any other cause the nation owes 
its very greatness. The omission of religious teaching 
from our State-governed systems of education is the 
committal of an immeasurable wrong against the child- 
hood of the nation. 

I am quite aware of the fact that in several of our 
States the laws make permissible and provide for a 
certain amount of religious exercises in connection with 
the work of the secular school. Under the pressure of 
public sentiment such provisions are likely to be in- 
creased rather than lessened throughout the republic. 
It is very evident, however, in the light of experience 
that in the present developments these concessions by 
the States are not resulting in anything like an adequate 
biblical or Christian training for the childhood of the 
very States in which these provisions exist. 



SECULARIZED EDUCATION 107 

Germany seems to be thought of by many of our 
people as the home of rationalistic and of destructive 
critical thought. It is the home of critical scholarship 
and of advanced educational ideals. But in the matter 
of religious education in her public schools Germany 
is Christian and reverent in a sense and measure to 
which we in America can make no claim. 

I cannot here enter into detailed statement of the 
German educational systems. In general, it is enough 
to state that, with the exception of schools devoted 
distinctively to trade, technical, or commercial training, 
religious education in schools below university grade 
is made compulsory. In the universities the teaching 
of religion is provided for in the theological faculty. 
Characteristic of the thoroughness of German educational 
methods, the teachers provided to conduct religious 
instruction represent usually a high order of scholarship. 
They conduct their work studiously and reverently, 
making their duties a matter of conscience and devotion. 
It seems evident to those who have had closest oppor- 
tunity to study the religious teaching thus required 
that its effect upon the national mind is both vital and 
uplifting. 

As a sample expression of the "aim sought" in this 
public teaching of religion, I quote from the Declaration 
of the Official Curriculum from the Volksschullen of 
the Kingdom of Wurtemburg as follows: "The nurture 
of the religious life in the school requires that the entire 
instruction and discipline of the institution shall be 
administered in the fear of God, which is the beginning 
of wisdom. The opening and closing services of song 



io8 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

and prayer should both contribute toward and give 
evidence of this. It is the task of specific religious 
instruction to acquaint the children with the facts and 
verities of salvation in such a manner that both a love 
for and an intelligent comprehension of evangelical 
Christianity shall result.' ' 

In America one of our obstacles, largely regarded as 
insuperable, to the introduction of religious instruction 
in the public schools is the diversity of religious con- 
viction so characteristic of our population. We have 
with us in relatively great numbers, the Jew, the Catholic, 
the Protestant, and the men of no faith. In Germany 
this problem is largely met by segregation of the 
different faiths in the classroom, and by providing 
for Jews Jewish teachers, for Catholics Catholic teach- 
ers, and for Protestants Protestant teachers. This 
method ought not to prove impracticable for us in 
America. 

Of course it will not be claimed that this enforced 
religious teaching results in all cases in experimental 
and transformed spiritual lives. But it has this im- 
measurable value, that it makes religious truth a con- 
stituent part of education for the individual. So thorough 
is the German method of instilling religious truth that, 
on good authority, it is said: "It would be difficult to 
find on the streets of Berlin a boy (or girl) of fourteen 
or fifteen years of age who does not know the chief events 
of Old Testament history, the life and teachings of Jesus 
and his apostles, the best-known church hymns, the 
principal questions and answers from the Catechism, 
and a choice number of passages which he has mem- 






SECULARIZED EDUCATION 109 

orized." 1 How many of our nominally Protestant or 
Catholic boys and girls, the products of our boasted 
public-school system, could meet a test like this? 

Dr. Thomas Nicholson, the highly efficient educational 
secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, frankly 
recognizes in the thought-mode of the times conditions 
which make it increasingly difficult to hold the masses 
to the churches or to bring them into hearty cooperation 
with the program of Christianity, 2 and of all causes 
which conspire to this result he believes on "mature 
reflection" that none is so potent as the "negative atti- 
tude of our whole system of public education to the 
religious element in education and life." 

Aside from what is ordinarily understood by the 
phrase "our public-school system," we have a generous 
number of institutions known as "State universities." 
Many of these attract to themselves large student com- 
munities, command numerous teachers of the highest 
educational type, conduct nearly every kind of pro- 
fessional or technical departments, and under the direction 
of the most expert specialists possible of procurement. 
Some of these institutions, all of them comparatively 
young, already rank in real strength with the very fore- 
most of our older universities. These universities, by 
reason of the liberal financial policies of the State, and 
because of their rich equipment in appliances, are destined 
to take on greatly increased strength and a widening 
sway in American university life. A characteristic of 



1 In the preparation of the above statements of German educational methods, I have 
had before me a highly valuable manuscript prepared by Dr. Henry H. Meyer, himself 
an eminent German scholar, in which he treats this whole question from the standpoint 
of first-hand observation. 2 Militant Methodism, p. 141. 



no CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

these State universities is, that while they support strong 
schools for nearly all professional departments, they, 
unlike the German universities, make no provision for 
maintaining biblical or theological faculties. Religious 
teaching is a function to which they give no place, and 
for which they assume no responsibility. 

In the last fiscal year our State universities were 
supported at an expense of more than $72,000,000. 
This large expenditure reflects great credit upon both 
the wisdom and the generosity of the various Legislatures 
in making so liberal provision for the highest type of 
education under State auspices. But the very largeness 
of this provision for secular education only makes more 
marked by contrast the neglect of all provision for re- 
ligious instruction in these institutions. If religion 
represents one of the primal instincts of human nature, 
if culture of the religious nature is vitally and absolutely 
essential to a complete and ideal development of char- 
acter, then the failure of a chief educational institution 
to make provision for such culture may prove just ground 
for the severest indictment against such institution 
itself. If religion is a matter of supreme importance 
to the individual and to society, then that education 
is most valuable which vitally and sanely enforces the 
best ideals of religious instruction. If religion is a 
matter of supreme importance to the individual and to 
society, then that institution which fails to give a capital 
place to religious instruction fails disastrously in meeting 
the highest educational ideals. 

The contribution which an educational institution 
makes to religion is, by certain standards, susceptible 



SECULARIZED EDUCATION in 

of proximate measurement. For instance, an institution 
whose teaching faculty intelligently and zealously sup- 
ports religious ideals will be likely to send forth a certain 
percentage of its graduates into distinctively religious 
work. Candidates for the ministry and for foreign 
missionary service, it seems reasonable to assume, should 
be found in considerable numbers among such graduates. 

Dr. Nicholson assumes that at least twenty thousand 
Methodist students are in attendance upon State uni- 
versities. Yet all these institutions combined supply 
not more than four per cent of the ministry of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. He cites one great State 
university, with a thousand student members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and with three thousand 
members of other evangelical churches, and with a 
body of alumni numbering eight thousand, which in a 
history of fifty years has given less than twenty ministers 
to all evangelical churches combined. In contrast to 
these figures it seems significant that in five years, from 
1904-09, the Northwestern University, at Evanston, 
Illinois, furnished four fifths as many recruits for our 
foreign missionary service as all the State universities 
in the United States combined. And in the same five- 
year period two of the small Methodist colleges furnished 
five more missionary recruits than all the State uni- 
versities, and yet the endowment of these lesser colleges 
does not represent a hundredth part as much as that 
of the State universities in question. 

Religious purposes are born and nurtured in a religious 
atmosphere. It is estimated that twenty-two per cent 
of all college-bred Methodist ministers reach their de- 



ii2 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

cision to enter the ministry while in their undergraduate 
courses in religious colleges. This is a great testimony 
to the vitality of religious influences existing in these 
colleges. 

A history of our great State universities reveals as 
positive a divorce between their general policies of 
education, and the distinctive mission of religious teach- 
ing, as is shown in institutions of grammar and high 
school grades in the nation-wide system of public 
education. 1 

It should, of course, be borne in mind that the public- 
school system is the one chiefly considered in this dis- 
cussion. There is a large number of schools which are 
established and conducted under religious auspices. 
It is to be assumed that definite attention is given to 
religious instruction in schools of this class. 

The institution of the Sunday school is in universal 
vogue among the Christian denominations. The latest 
returns show an enrollment of Sunday school scholars 
in the United States of 13,732,841. The production 
of Sunday school literature for this great army of boys 
and girls has resulted in the development of some of 
the largest publishing interests in the country. The 
quality of study material for the schools has been an 
evolution, showing a continuous improvement through 
the years. Both men and women in increasing numbers, 
persons representing thorough biblical scholarship, the 
most approved pedagogical methods, and masters of 

1 In discussing the State universities, I have drawn freely upon Dr. Nicholson's address 
delivered before the Convention of Methodist Men in Indianapolis, October, 1913. While 
he deals specifically with the relations of State universities to the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, I can have no doubt that the figures given are typical of like results in other 
denominations. 



SECULARIZED EDUCATION 113 

winsome style, have been secured by the various pub- 
lishers to prepare the textbooks, the periodicals, and 
the weekly papers devoted to Sunday school uses. One 
of the papers, with which the writer is familiar, has a 
weekly circulation of more than five hundred thousand 
copies. It is impossible to measure the moral and 
spiritual values of the Sunday school. 

But if it be true, as would appear, that religious train- 
ing of children in the home is on the decrease, and that 
for multitudes of American children the Sabbath school 
is the only place in which they receive any systematic 
religious instruction, then self -evidently the Sunday 
school does not, and, in the very nature of the case 
cannot, meet the larger and vital demands of the 
situation. 

The public school has the child for thirty hours in 
the week. The Sunday school confines its classroom 
work to one hour in the week. The classes in the public 
schools are taught by trained, licensed, and paid teachers. 
The classes in the Sunday school are in charge of volun- 
teer teachers, many of whom have neither training nor 
competency for their task. I am far from a disposition 
to impugn motives or to depreciate merit. The willing- 
ness on the part of any one to enter seriously upon the 
work of Sunday school teaching merits commendation. 
But from not a little observation I am much impressed 
that one of the capital difficulties of the expert Sunday 
school superintendent, in the average community, is 
in securing a sufficient number of competent persons 
for teaching the classes in his school. 

The Sunday school when awarded all just recognition 



ii 4 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

is in itself greatly inadequate to the mission of furnish- 
ing religious education to the children of the nation. 
The grave fact — and the fact is grave beyond measure- 
ment — is that in this country the sane and efficient 
methods of religious education of childhood as now 
operative are entirely disproportionate to the vast needs 
and importance of the situation itself, and to the vital 
moral necessities of the case. The gravity of the situa- 
tion is great beyond any measure to which the national 
thought has yet awakened. The nation that fails to 
imbue its own children educationally with high ethical 
and spiritual ideals, is a nation which in the most vital 
sense fails to fortify its own future. It is but an 
utterance of what will be generally recognized as sound 
psychologically to declare that there can be no complete 
education without religion. 

The grave consequences of our national neglect in 
this vital department of education are more and more 
receiving attention from our ablest educators, and to 
multitudes of thoughtful people are bringing an increasing 
sense of apprehension and alarm. Just recently the 
Central Councils of the Roman Catholic Church in this 
country have been taking this matter into renewed and 
most careful consideration. The parochial school system 
of this Church fails to meet the educational needs of 
multitudes of its children, and the authorities are advising 
their parishes everywhere throughout the nation to 
avail themselves of special times and places, either with 
or without the cooperation of the public schools, for 
the special religious education of the children. 

The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in 



SECULARIZED EDUCATION 115 

America is perhaps the most representative body of 
American Protestantism. At its first meeting, held 
in Philadelphia, in 1908, the question of the religious 
education of children was regarded as one of the most 
important for consideration. At the second meeting 
of this Council, held in Chicago, in December, 191 2, 
a report on this question was presented in which the 
most definite and urgent resolutions were adopted urging 
upon national educational authorities the imperative 
importance of making a general provision for religious 
education of the childhood of the nation. 

In several parts of this country and of Canada 
methods have already been entered upon for the intro- 
duction of specific courses in Bible and religious train- 
ing in normal and high schools, which courses are to be 
conducted under the joint auspices of the Church and 
the public-school authorities. 

The question of the religious education of children is 
one of such primal importance; it relates itself so im- 
peratively, so vitally, to the moral welfare of the nation 
as to make it unbelievable that it will not in the near 
future receive its rightful recognition and coordination 
in our educational life. 



EDUCATED LEADERSHIP 



117 



In this day, just because we are moving out to a newer and large 
world-view, the minister must be reasonably familiar with the thought- 
movement of the time and must easily be able to orient himself. This 
aspect of contemporary life, not to mention the rising tide of knowledge 
on the part of the people generally, makes the best possible educational 
equipment imperatively necessary to the preacher of to-day. ... It is 
generally conceded that the college graduate has greater chances of success 
than the man who has neglected his early training. And the difficulties 
to success with an educational handicap are admitted, for the most part, 
by men who sutler the disadvantages. ... I have often thought if I could 
get the ear of the Church at large, I would say, "Give your best young 
men to the ministry of the Church, for the need is great, and nothing 
less than the best will do." ... If I could get the ear of our college author- 
ities, I would say, "Pray God to help you select men for the fields, al- 
ready white to the harvest, for as no other men in the kingdom God has 
given you the opportunity to put over the Christian hosts a leadership 
well equipped and needing not to be ashamed." — Dr. Thomas Nicholson. 

The question of religious education is the greatest single question 
which the Church has to face. Once we thought it was just the question 
of a subject; the making of a catechism, or arranging Sunday school 
lessons. Now we see that the main problem is not in the subject but in 
the soul. We have the new science of religious psychology and the new 
art of religious pedagogy. The great movement is on in the Church 
to-day. The minister must lead. And not one minister in ten is fitted 
for that task. . . . The final question in the success of the Church is not 
society, and collections, and buildings. It is men, Christian service at 
its highest efficiency. And the pivotal man is the minister. A rightly 
trained ministry would mean a Church doubled in its efficiency to-morrow. 
God has called us in the ministry to the highest work. We deal with 
the highest interests. We work with the strongest leverage upon men 
and the world. For that work we will give God the best and highest 
self that we can be, nor grudge the years of study that our college mate 
will give who looks to law or thinks of medicine. — Dr. Harris Franklin 
Rall. 



118 



CHAPTER VII 
EDUCATED LEADERSHIP 

Many difficulties which beset the present-day Church 
inhere in intellectual conditions which are quite dis- 
tinctive to the age. The time was in the older New 
England when the pulpit was the intellectual oracle of 
the community. The preacher was the best-educated 
man in the town. His exposition of the Bible, his teach- 
ing in theology, his views of public and social questions, 
were accepted as authoritative. But the day of a pulpit- 
teaching monopoly on questions religious, public, social 
has forever gone. The public press, omniscient in vision, 
gathering instant its knowledge from world-ends, is 
to-day thrusting its myriad and informing pages into 
all homes. There is more trained and scholarly intellect 
employed in the creation of a single great daily than is 
to be found in any one pulpit of the land. 

This daily has a fresh issue for every day in the year, 
and an eager audience of many thousands of readers 
for each issue. It brings to every home a current his- 
tory of the world, and gives information on every sub- 
ject which may challenge interest. The daily is demo- 
cratic in its treatment of thought. It treats all sorts 
of subjects with audacious freedom. On Sunday morning, 
when the minister is seriously meditating upon his im- 
pending pulpit message, the Sunday newspaper, laden 
with pictorial and literary attractions, is delivered in 

119 



i2o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

most of the homes of the parish. Then the magazine, 
various in its literary product, a marvel of artistic 
make-up, furnished for trifling cost, lies upon all the 
living-room tables. And books — books by celebrities, 
books by experts in all departments of knowledge and 
thought, books of religion, history, philosophy, science, 
of essays and poetry, books discussing with skill and 
lucidity all subjects which may appeal to the human 
intellect — these may be had for the asking. Everybody 
who has intellectual taste may read books in these days. 

The preacher is no longer the most learned man in 
the community. The college man is abroad in the 
parish. The scientific expert is the preacher's next-door 
neighbor. The appreciative reader and devourer of 
best books, here and there, sits in the pew. The preacher 
of to-day has a man's work to do to keep himself intel- 
lectually abreast with the best-informed men and women 
of his parish. If he should happen to have an inferior 
intellectual equipment; if he should be lacking in that 
trained mental discernment which would qualify him 
for selecting the best courses for his own reading; if 
perchance he were mentally indolent; and if with all 
he should be something of a faddist — as such men some- 
times are — would it, under these circumstances, be 
surprising if he should fail to command a large 
intellectual following in his community? 

A great fact, however unwelcome, which must compel 
recognition in any adequate view of the relations of 
the Church to the age is that much in the accepted 
and popular thought of the Church is out of adjustment 
with the leading and most formative thought of our 



EDUCATED LEADERSHIP 121 

times. We are living in an age vastly transitional, an 
age whose necessary and inevitable thinking has made 
great departures from a large body of belief and custom 
out of which much of the typical and traditional thought 
of the Church took its form. We are citizens to-day 
of a widely different intellectual world from that in which 
either Saint Paul, Martin Luther, or John Wesley lived. 
Since the advent of Kant and Darwin, philosophy and 
science have been reborn. The world's most formative 
thinking voices itself in new postulates. The age is one 
of great intellectual reconstructions, an age which with 
clear vision is moving sure-footedly out into new regions 
of philosophy, of science, of psychology and sociology, 
regions such as were never before possible of exploration. 
This intellectual world of which I now speak is one in 
which only elect thinkers are fully matriculated. It 
is a world into which the great rank and file of church 
life have as yet very little entered. It is a world whose 
intellectual positions unfortunately have too often been 
construed as antagonistic to time-honored views which 
the Church has cherished. It has thus resulted that 
many good men, men of clean morality, of unquestioned 
integrity and of high Christian conscientiousness, have 
very little appreciation of, or sympathy with, the great 
intellectual trends of modern scholarship. The prevalent 
and popular thought of the Church-trained life has not 
yet adjusted itself to, or come into harmony with, the 
growing and ruling scientific philosophy of the age. 

The above is written in no spirit of reproach. A 
great majority of the best people in our churches, people 
whose loyalty to Jesus Christ is beyond all question, 



i22 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

have neither the training nor the intellectual habits 
which qualify them for a first-hand judgment of the 
deeper thought-movements of the age. 

In so far, however, as there is any real cleavage between 
the cherished traditional thought of the Church and 
the positions of modern scholarship, this cleavage can 
only be justly regarded as likely to be fraught with 
disastrous consequences. It can only mean the putting 
asunder, and into alien camps, forces which ought to 
be joined in indissoluble harmony. If the voice of the 
Church condemns and derides modern scientific think- 
ing, this will be a reason why the thinker trained under 
modern methods will do his thinking and his work out- 
side of the Church. This very result has already taken 
place in lamentable measure. The college-trained men 
and women of the nation, the men and women of inde- 
pendent and self-respecting thought, are not working 
in the Church in any such measure as could be devoutly 
wished. And this is the fact while the professional 
classes, the very classes whose work requires a liberal 
education, are relatively increasing in all the cities of 
the land. The college men who really find an inspiring 
and satisfying intellectual atmosphere in church affiliations 
are not as numerous as they should be. It is a great 
misfortune to themselves that so large a proportion 
of the most effectively trained minds of the age fail 
to find a satisfactory intellectual environment within 
the fellowship of the Church. 

On the other hand, who can measure the enormous 
moral asset which is lost to the Church itself because 
of its failure to appreciate and assimilate the wealth 



EDUCATED LEADERSHIP 123 

of truth which modern scientific thought and investi- 
gation are giving to the world? No life more needs 
the enrichment, the stimulus, the uplift, furnished from 
the products of modern scientific thinking, than does 
the ordinary rank and file life of the Church. The 
Church cannot continue to live and thrive under any 
policy that makes it inhospitable to the largest freedom 
of the intellectual life. Thought, and the enlarging 
perception of truth which comes as a product of thought, 
are not simply the ozone, they must be reckoned with 
as vitalizing and indispensable constituents in the very 
life-blood of the Church itself. 

A great need of the Church to-day in its governing 
life is complete emancipation from any atmosphere of 
intellectual narrowness and intolerance. This is by no 
means to imply that the Church at its highest sources 
should not sedulously guard itself against error. The 
Church stands, or should stand, for the highest truth 
that relates itself to human life and destiny. It should 
equally and broadly stand for all affiliated truth. Its 
custodians will, however, be in best position to guard 
the Church itself from injurious error when they them- 
selves are largest and sanest partakers of present-day 
thought as related to the problems of the Christian 
life. 

If I were to suggest that one of the present imperative 
needs of the Church is a newly formulated theology, 
the proposition would strike some as audacious, if not 
incendiary. Yet nevertheless the suggestion represents 
a movement now in vigorous process. And why not? 
The historic theologies of the past were formulated in 



i2 4 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

their respective ages by the most scholarly minds of 
the Church. Whatever the attitude of the Church 
toward modern scientific thought, it has always de- 
pended for the exposition and defense of its faith upon 
scholarly minds. And no historic theology has come 
to us which has not been largely correlated with, and 
shaped by, the philosophy prevalent in the age of its 
origin. The purpose of theology is to make religion 
intelligible and convincing to thought. But this pur- 
pose cannot be realized unless theology is so stated as 
to be in some correlation with the general knowledge 
of the age. Most of the historic theologies are deficient 
in a sympathetic or effective correlation with those 
views of man and of the universe which modern scientific 
knowledge has forced upon the age. These theologies for 
body of substance were formulated in prescientiflc 
times. They had no prescient outlook upon such a 
thought-world as ours of to-day. 

A new scientific category well-nigh covering man's 
entire physical, psychic, and social life, and the entire 
range of cosmic being, has gained a firm place in the 
postulates of modern intelligence. Neither the Church 
nor the world needs a new gospel. The old and divine 
gospel does need the benefit of making its appeal to 
the modern mind disencumbered of superseded thought. 
The theology that will be effective in the twentieth cen- 
tury is one that will not be at war with clear convictions 
resting upon twentieth-century knowledge. The ideal 
magnum opus of such a theology has not yet appeared, 
but the material for its making is abundant on every 
hand. 



EDUCATED LEADERSHIP 125 

In the meantime it will prove an unhallowed thing 
if the Church and learning shall mutually cherish a 
divisive spirit. Learning needs the Church. Not less 
does the Church need all the knowledge and wisdom 
which the most learned can bring to her altars. Spirit- 
uality and intelligence are the twin forces which are 
to bring triumph to God's kingdom in the earth. 

In connection with, and growing largely from, the 
changing intellectual atmospheres of the age, it will 
be conceded that a condition of vital importance to 
the strength and influence of the Church inheres in the 
character of its ministry. That the Christian minister 
should be a good man goes without the saying. This 
phase need not be discussed. A necessity of the age, 
an imperative necessity, one which rarely, if ever, should 
be disregarded, is that young candidates for the ministry 
shall not be permitted to enter upon their lifework 
until they have first received the highest advantages 
of the schools. No young man who proposes to give 
his life to the Christian ministry does justice to himself, 
his calling, or his Church, who seeks to enter upon this 
work without first giving himself most thorough educa- 
tional preparation. The intellectual standards of the 
age demand nothing less of him than this. 

It is not a primary question whether a man entering 
the ministry short of the highest professional preparation 
may not be useful. Such a man may have native gifts, 
sympathy and insight which will render him in the 
pastorate even a greater success than his college-bred 
brother in a neighboring parish. But even so, this 
man, with hardly an exception, has robbed himself and 



i26 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

robbed the Church of an important increment of power 
and largeness of view which would have come to him 
with more thorough preliminary training. I know the 
difficulties that poverty sometimes, often I believe, puts 
in a young man's way. But over against this, any 
young man who has in him the stamina that prophesies 
fitness for future leadership in the ministry can find 
ways of overcoming these difficulties. We have heard 
much about self-made men; but, as a rule, the only 
first-class self-made men in the professional world to-day 
are men who have made their way through the highest 
professional training schools. 

A recent investigation by the Board of Education of 
one of the largest evangelical denominations, covering two 
decades ending respectively with the years 1880 and 1890, 
shows the following facts : Of those who responded to a 
special letter of inquiry sent to all ministers, asking of 
their educational preparation prior to their entering upon 
their active ministry, of three hundred and ninety-three 
replying who had received less preparation than the 
educational requirement of the Church, only one can 
be ranked as having risen to prominent leadership; 
while of four hundred and thirty-eight who had met the 
educational requirements, forty-six have risen to historic 
leadership in the denomination. 

Some denominations more than others have insisted 
upon high standards of ministerial education. It is 
not easy in this matter to secure reliable statistics from 
all the denominations; but from such information as 
I have been able to obtain, I am impressed that more 
than one half of all the active evangelical ministers of 



EDUCATED LEADERSHIP 127 

the nation entered upon their ministry, each with less 
than the equivalent of an ordinary high-school education. 

The astronomer takes his pupils up into the observatory, 
where with his telescope he can sweep all the constella- 
tions of the skies. This is the great advantage of the 
college and seminary -trained men. The college and 
seminary do not teach all knowledge. But under trained 
leadership they take the young mind up into the observ- 
atory where can be traced the boundaries of the great 
and important divisions of knowledge and of thought. 
The young man really college-trained enters the door 
of professional life, not only with quickened ideals, 
not only in possession of many valuable facts and ideas, 
but with a sense of proportion as to intellectual values. 
He knows what fields he may most profitably enter 
for investigation. He carries to his work disciplined 
faculties which vastly enhance his working power. He 
easily makes himself master of tasks before which other 
men fail. The man of defective preliminary education 
enters the ministry under a tremendous handicap. 
The chances are that he has never acquired the habits 
of a student. He does not really know how to study. 
He does not know what to study. 

As it is, however, with all the colleges and theological 
seminaries under the auspices of the Church, to say 
nothing of the multitude of universities and colleges 
throughout the land, a pronounced majority of American 
preachers are graduates neither of the college nor the 
seminary. This is not pleasant ground to traverse. 
I am farthest from a disposition personally to arraign 
or berate the man of limited education. His limitation 



i28 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

is his misfortune. But, the situation is one of ominous 
portent for the Church of the twentieth century. It is 
not reasonable to assume that men not imbued with 
the ideals of a liberal education can readily rise to an 
adequate conception of the intellectual demands which 
rightfully in these times are laid upon the Christian 
ministry. 

I have had some opportunity to observe the intel- 
lectual habits of ministers. This may be laid down 
as true: The great preachers, the preachers who com- 
mand the largest hearing, are, almost without exception, 
omnivorous readers. They are great buyers of books. 
They are students. But there is a woeful number of 
our ministers who are not in any pronounced sense 
book-lovers. Their libraries in many cases are pitiably 
meager. They give no evidence either in public utter- 
ance or in private conversation of commanding familiarity 
with scholarly themes. To say nothing about the 
temptation to which many such men are exposed to 
run into intellectual fads, eccentricities, and crankisms, 
insufficient intellectual equipment is quite sure to be 
found in company with mental indolence. In the mean- 
time the price of all this to the Church is most costly. 
The intellectual life, really the most influential life of 
the community, will not put itself under the leadership 
of such a ministry. The minister whose intellectuality 
does not command the respect of the high-school boys 
and girls in his community is a man misplaced. 

There is, of course, another large side to this whole 
question. It is the side created by petty denominational 
rivalries which find their expression largely throughout 



EDUCATED LEADERSHIP 129 

the country in small and struggling churches, churches 
which represent a meager and pitiably insufficient ministe- 
rial support, and all furnishing a background largely 
destitute of incentive to ministerial hope, ambition, or 
energy. As has already been noted, we have in this 
country an absurd numerical excess of distinct Protes- 
tant denominations. In many instances a half dozen 
of these denominations, all weak and therefore inefficient, 
are struggling to occupy a ground which otherwise 
might strongly and profitably be ministered to by a 
single church. Is it any wonder that men of large 
business discernment and administrative ability have 
in innumerable instances lost both interest and faith 
in this kind of church development? A condition, 
however, which causes the perpetuation of a needless 
number of weak and rival churches inevitably means 
a well-nigh corresponding number of ill equipped 
ministers. 

In entering the plea for a high standard of ministerial 
education I am farthest possible from the assumption 
that an educated intellect is by any means solely, or 
even chiefly, the condition of an efficient ministry. 
The man of good normal mind, with a pronounced 
spiritual experience, with a divine love of men begotten 
in his life, consecrated in purpose, a diligent student 
of his English Bible, and possessing a tactful approach 
to his fellow men — this kind of a man, as a winner of 
souls, will be far more efficient than could be expected 
of the most critically trained intellect otherwise destitute 
of the qualities named. 

The beautiful and just portrait of the faithful preacher 



i 3 o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

which Goldsmith, in his ''Deserted Village," furnishes 
is a picture of something far other than that of simply 
a trained intellect. It is a picture of love, of devotion, 
of charity, of helpfulness, of unselfishness, all blending 
themselves into a single life, of a service so Christlike 
that its influence rested like a benediction upon the 
entire community: 

At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 

His looks adorned the venerable place; 

Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, 

And fools who came to scoff remained to pray. 

The service past, around the pious man, 

With ready zeal each honest rustic ran; 

E'en children followed, with endearing wile, 

And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile. 

His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed, 

Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed; 

To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 

But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 

But when fullest emphasis is laid on other qualities 
essential to highest ministerial efficiency, there is in 
it all no concession to ideals of defective intellectual 
education for our modern ministry. The minister's 
mission is, or should be, largely with childhood. He 
ought to be a master of the pedagogy and psychology 
of childhood training. He is to minister in a community 
where education is general, in which the professional 
men, and the men of leading influence, are educated. 
In general culture he should be at least a peer among 
the ablest of them all. Concerning the Bible, its teach- 
ing, its history, he ought to know more than any of 
his neighbors. While as expounder of the Scriptures, 
he is not to be a gratuitous disturber of immature minds, 



EDUCATED LEADERSHIP 



131 



nor to treat recklessly inherited views which his 
intelligence does not permit him to share, it will still 
be to his discredit if he is not familiarly at home with 
both the discussions and the conclusions reached about 
the Bible by the most scholarly and competent Christian 
thinkers. 

An imperative demand upon the Christian minister 
of to-day is that he command the intellectual respect 
of the community in which he ministers. Lacking 
this, whatever other qualities he may have, he is destined 
to fail at points of vital need. 



PLUTOCRACY 



133 



Our intensest anger is not that mouths are hungry, but that insufficent 
physical nourishment means mind and heart unfed; not that bodies are 
crowded together in the homeless warrens of poverty, but that then 
the soul is without air to breathe or room to grow in, and the decencies 
and dignities owed to manhood, womanhood, and childhood are denied; 
not that men's shoulders are bowed down by hopeless, aimless labor, 
but that the soul's power to do its proper work is threshed out of it. And 
this indignation can demand no less a right for all men than untram- 
meled growth of power for wisdom and beauty, for joy and love, for right- 
eousness and holiness. The demand is not for things, except as things 
serve souls, not for conditions, except as conditions further the inner 
life.— Charles Henry Dickinson. 

Life is holy. Respect for life is Christian. Business, setting Profit 
first, has recklessly used up the life of the workers, and impaired the 
life of the consumers wherever that increased profit. The life of great 
masses has been kept low by poverty, haunted by fear, and deprived 
of the joyous expression of life in play. . . . With unanimous moral judg- 
ment mankind has always loved and exalted those who sacrificed their 
self-interest to the common welfare, and despised those who sold out 
the common good for private profit. The cross of Christ stands for the 
one principle of action; the bag of Judas stands for the other. God's 
country begins where men love to serve their fellows. The devil's country 
begins where men eat men. I submit the proposition that the over- 
growth of private interests has institutionalized an unchristian principle, 
and that we must reverse the line of movement if we want to establish 
the law of Christ. — Professor Walter Rauschenbusch. 



134 



CHAPTER VIII 
PLUTOCRACY 

I desire to preface this chapter by some statements 
regarding the legitimacy and rights of private wealth. 
Both have sure standing ground in Christian ethics. 
Nothing can be more irrational, nothing less justified, 
than an ^discriminate outcry against the owners of 
wealth. The man who by honest skill, industry, and 
thrift, amasses for himself a fortune must, in the very 
process, practice and develop certain qualities which 
in themselves are essential traits of Christian char- 
acter. I find a list of these qualities nowhere better 
suggested than by Dr. W. M. Clow. "Industry, fidelity, 
foresight, careful attention to details, self-denial, and 
a wise regard to a man's spending and pleasuring. No 
man can achieve riches without a constant self-control, 
a careful providence, and a costly observance of the 
virtues which all men find difficult." 1 

No interpretation of Christ's utterances concerning 
wealth — and some of these are very severe — can be 
justly construed as a condemnation of wealth per se. 
That Christ did most vividly portray the responsibilities 
of wealth is beyond question. He uniformly preached 
its possession as a grave moral trust. For its use its 
holder in every instance is held strictly responsible as 
a steward who must give account of his stewardship. 

1 Christ in the Social Order, p. 114. 

135 



i 3 6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

The rich must be rich in alms for the needy. It is their 
privilege to create and contribute to appliances for the 
development and education of artistic, technical, and 
special gifts, gifts which may finally serve the common 
good. As elsewhere indicated, it is difficult to conceive 
how the finer cultural interests of society can either 
be best or well served without a liberal consecration of 
privately directed wealth. Even Mr. Hillquit acknowl- 
edges that for most of its special and valuable endow- 
ments society is indebted to the gifts of private wealth. 
He says, "To this capitalist system of wealth distribution 
we are largely indebted for our libraries, our hospitals, 
rescue missions, and charitable institutions of all 
descriptions. " 

Its investment in the development of industrial and 
commercial interests is an entirely legitimate use of 
wealth. None is to be more respected than he who 
uses his trained experience and talent in the develop- 
ment of legitimate and useful business. Such a man 
is a benefactor. 

A fact worthy of special emphasis is that in periods 
of industrial depression many privately owned enter- 
prises are conducted principally with reference to the 
good of labor. Many such enterprises, while paying 
their labor the highest wages of the market, are pro- 
ducing only the narrowest margins of profit, if not even 
suffering financial loss. In some cases the demand 
for the commodity dealt with is so limited, or, as in 
most cases, the competition of business is so keen and 
close, as to make impossible any special division of 
earnings as above actual wages paid to labor employed. 



PLUTOCRACY 137 

This benevolent course on the part of ownership so 
largely characterizes the average business world as to 
make it little less than an atrocity for the socialistic 
writer, or organized labor, to indiscriminately charge 
the business proprietor as being a robber of the poor. 

The man who assumes the capitalistic risk of con- 
ducting a business, paying his labor the highest wage 
of the market, thereby leaving for himself only a legit- 
imate income and a narrow margin for capital invested, 
merits commendation as a benefactor in his com- 
munity. 

Christ did not condemn the possession of wealth 
per se. His pictures, however, of the perils of wealth 
are so appalling as almost to make one feel that it is 
better and safer to be poor than to be rich. The rich 
man who trusteth in his riches cannot hope to enter 
into the kingdom of heaven. It were easier for a camel 
to go through the eye of a needle. An insidious deceit- 
fulness attends the lust of wealth which chokes the 
very word of life out of the human soul. The rich 
man who trusted to the abundance of his treasure, and, 
therefore, proposed for himself a life of banqueting 
and pleasure is characterized by Christ as a fool. And 
he adds, "So is he that layeth up treasure for himself 
and is not rich toward God." A young man, so out- 
wardly attractive in character as especially to challenge 
the interest of Jesus, came to him asking what he should 
do to gain eternal life. Christ said unto him, "Sell 
all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and 
thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow 
me." And when he heard this he was very sorrowful, 



i 3 8 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

for he was very rich. Saint Paul says, "They that 
will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into 
many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in 
destruction and perdition." Saint James pronounces the 
most caustic woes against the rich who oppress the 
poor and defraud the laborer. 

The trend of New Testament teaching unmistakably 
makes the possession of wealth a great responsibility. 
Its spirit demands of the rich that they treat their wealth 
as a moral trust. No rich proprietor has a right to 
revel in a surplus of wealth while those who have reaped 
down his fields or toiled for wage at his machines are 
forced to do with the barest necessities of life. The 
capitalist who employs an army of labor at a barely 
living wage and who inordinately swells his private 
fortune makes no atonement for such a wrong by 
ostentatiously founding and endowing institutions for 
the public. 

Selfishness is a great foe of social and moral progress. 
Between the enlightened Christian conscience and worldly 
selfishness there is, and must be, irrepressible conflict. 
Selfishness detrimental to both individual and social 
welfare is not confined to any one class or condition 
of men. It is as positively a characteristic of the poor 
as of the rich, of those socially most helpless as of those 
in privileged life. Selfishness is a great detraction 
from character. However environed, no one can come 
to his best save as, by the transforming power of higher 
motives, the spirit of selfishness — the kind of selfishness 
which seeks its own end regardless of the interest of 
others — has been dethroned from the life. 



PLUTOCRACY 139 

In all the range of human motives there is probably 
no single factor in connection with which selfishness 
shows its moral obliquity, or its heartless despotism, 
more supremely than in the acquisition and uses of 
money. The tyrannies of selfishness have marked the 
pathway of history with tragedies. It is the foundation 
upon which all despotisms have been planted. It has 
been the breeder of slaveries, of castes, of spurious 
aristocracies, and of all kinds of invidious distinctions 
which all through the ages have disfranchised the mul- 
titudes from participation in the higher attainments 
of manhood. It has been the fruitful corrupter of 
morals, the betrayer of the innocent, and, clad in priestly 
robes, it has audaciously performed its functions at 
the very altar dedicated to the high purposes of re- 
ligion. 

Selfishness is the one power which through the ages 
has sent right to the scaffold, and has kept wrong upon 
the throne, yet it has been reserved for this most en- 
lightened and privileged age of civilization to erect on 
the basis of money one of the most widespread, arrogant, 
and heartless of despotisms. There never was a des- 
potism that held under its dominion a larger census 
of defenseless subjects than the money power of this 
Christian age. 

It is not the purpose of this discussion to deny the 
legitimacy of money, nor yet to inveigh against large 
capitalistic combinations in promotion of world-serving 
enterprises. I do, however, distinctly challenge the 
moral legitimacy of capitalistic monopolies which more 
and more include within the control of huge and close 



i 4 o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

corporations the industries of a nation; corporations 
directed by a privileged few, and from whose counsels 
and revenues the masses are excluded, and whose com- 
bined power and policies make it practically impossible 
for men of smaller capital successfully to enter the field 
in competitive enterprise. 

I know something of what is said in justification of 
monopolies. They profess to serve the greater com- 
munity with the best product and at prices as reason- 
able as is consistent with the most economical creation 
and distribution of the product itself. They claim to 
be able to regulate the quantities of production, the 
prices of sale, and thus to give stability to industry and 
to the market. And if it be true that the great com- 
binations exclude a multitude of lesser capitalists from 
entering successfully into businesses directed by them- 
selves, it is claimed as a compensating offset that the 
really capable, those who might otherwise become 
proprietors, are sought to fill responsible and remunerative, 
though subordinate, positions in the combinations. Thus 
the trusts appear ostensibly in the role of philanthropic 
guarantors against financial want in behalf of those 
whom they select as having valuable business and exec- 
utive ability for their service. So a multitude of salaried 
men, who are notified by a decree as inexorable as fate 
that they will never be permitted to enter business 
for themselves, may have reason for devout gratitude 
that through the sovereign power, wisdom, and beneficence 
of the gigantic machine, they will be permitted to live 
in physical comfort throughout their days. 

Who with his soul thoroughly imbued with Christ's 






PLUTOCRACY 141 

conception of the Fatherhood of God and the brother- 
hood of man does not feel, even if he is unable to define, 
the great moral wrong inhering in the situation? The 
very basic assumptions of capitalistic and selfish monopoly 
are an affront against all the better ideals of civilization. 
As institutions these monopolies are a menace to dem- 
ocratic government. Their practical tendency is to 
install over the very life of the nation a soulless, 
arrogant, and irresistible oligarchy. 

No less able and eminent an authority than President 
Wilson in his recent articles on "The New Freedom" 
has vigorously voiced the dangers inhering in the situa- 
tion. He says: 

The life of the nation has grown infinitely variant. It does not center 
now upon questions of governmental structure or of the distribution 
of governmental powers. It centers upon questions of the very structure 
and operation of society itself, of which government is only the instru- 
ment. ... A new nation seems to have been created which the old formulas 
do not fit or afford a vital interpretation of . . . . There is a sense in which 
in our day the individual has been submerged. . . . While most men are 
thus submerged in the corporation, a few, a very few, are exalted to power 
which as individuals they could never have wielded. To-day the every- 
day relationships of men are largely with great impersonal concerns, 
with organizations, not with other individual men. . . . Our laws 
still deal with us on the basis of the old system. . . . What this country 
needs above everything else is a body of laws which will look after the 
men who are on the make rather than the men who are already made. . . . 
No country can afford to have its prosperity originated by a small con- 
trolling class. ... In the new order government and business must be 
associated closely. . . . But it is an intolerable thing that the government 
of the republic should have got so far out of the hands of the people, 
should have been captured by interests which are special and not general. 
In the train of this capture follow the troops of scandals, wrongs, inde- 
cencies, with which our politics swarm. . . . Why are we in the presence, 
why are we on the threshold, of a revolution? . . . Don't you know that 
this country from one end to the other believes that something is wrong? . . . 
We are in a temper to reconstruct economic society, as we were once 
in a temper to reconstruct political society, and political society itself 



i 4 2 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

may undergo a radical modification in the process. . . . We are upon the 
eve of a great reconstruction. It calls for creative statesmanship. 1 

The single fact which I wish to emphasize in this 
casual discussion of the selfishly monopolistic corpora- 
tions is that in so far as they dominate the character 
and policies of our economic civilization they stand 
directly opposed to the progress of vital Christianity 
and of true church life in the community. Their spirit 
and policies are in direct antagonism to the real brother- 
hood of man in Christ Jesus. These statements may 
seem like a hard arraignment ; but, if so, the arraignment 
is intended against the tendency and effect of a certain 
type of institutions rather than against the personal 
character or motives of individuals who may be interested 
in promoting these institutions. I am quite aware of 
all that may be said in commendation of great benev- 
olences which have been initiated by men grown rich 
through the monopolistic corporation. 

I know something of the vast endowments which 
from the same general sources have been conferred 
upon universities, libraries, hospitals, and other benev- 
olent public institutions. I have no doubt of the great 
intrinsic values inhering in such endowments as reen- 
forcing needed agencies for promoting the public welfare. 
But, after all, I am impressed that, in the light of a 
clear and unprejudiced moral judgment, it must be 
conceded that the very ability of so many private indi- 
viduals to bestow phenomenally large endowments upon 
public institutions is itself a symptom of an unideal, 

1 While having read with sympathetic appreciation President Wilson's articles in the 
World's Work, I am indebted for the quotations in the above form to an article by Dr. 
Charles J. Bushnell, in the American Journal of Theology for October, 1913. 



PLUTOCRACY 143 

an essentially abnormal, condition of the economic world. 

With reference to great numbers of individuals pro- 
moting and benefiting by the monopolistic trust both 
exceptional ability and high personal character must 
be promptly conceded. That they are conscientious, 
benevolent, and in many cases men of rare insight, 
men often of exceptional personal and social charm, 
is readily to be admitted. But these men have been 
intensely educated in the direction of their own pur- 
suits. They see things in their own light. They are 
largely the creation of the very interests to which they 
have so fully given their devotion. The very interests 
which have absorbed them, and the exceptional gains 
which they have realized, have filled their vision with a 
lure which has given both color and limitation to their 
social and moral judgments. 

Not all great capitalists are to be mdiscriminately 
condemned. They, in their very monopolistic ambitions, 
in their essentially selfish modes of life, in their practical 
isolation of themselves into a select oligarchy — in these, 
and in kindred qualities so conspicuously represented 
in the lives of the extremely rich, we see only the fateful 
product of a plutocratic philosophy. That such men 
are often benevolent is a testimony to their essential 
humanity. In the large benefactions which they now 
and then bestow the story of at least their partial triumph 
over motives which would prompt them to be utterly 
hard and sordid is told. 

I recur to a single sentence used by President Wilson. 
Speaking of the fact that the government of the republic 
has been so largely "captured by interests which are 



144 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

special and not general," he says: "In the train of this 
capture follow the troops of scandals, wrongs, inde- 
cencies, with which our politics swarm." President 
Wilson speaks as a man of large observation of, and 
participation in, public life. Presumably, he is not 
indulging in mere rhetorical fulminations. He knows 
something of methods used by great corporate interests 
in connection with politics and legislation. 

The financial interests have sought and secured large 
political control. The venal voter has been bribed at 
the ballot-box, and legislative majorities have been 
purchased. Through practical control of lawmaking 
bodies great sources of natural wealth have been as- 
signed to corporate interests without corresponding 
compensation to the public treasury or to the general 
welfare. Exclusive and most valuable franchises have 
been secured at but trifling costs, while the public, who 
should be the larger sharer in the benefits of these fran- 
chises, is forced to pay high tribute to these private 
corporations for its privileges. The press, omnipresent 
in influence, and which ought to be one of the most 
free, fearless, and illuminating teachers of righteousness, 
which ought to stand in unflinching advocacy of the 
rights of all men, is largely venalized by, and its great 
powers prostituted to, corporate greed. It goes, and 
should go, without the saying, that, morally measured, 
there are grades and grades of corporate interests. But 
still in the interests of greed essentially the most infamous 
and powerful combinations are effected. The liquor 
interest, highly capitalized, is not only enlisted in the 
murderous mission of making drunkards by the whole- 



PLUTOCRACY 145 

sale, but it is in leagued alliance with the traffickers 
in prostitution and the recruiting agencies of white 
slavery. Traffics in these nefarious missions are so 
lucrative that their promoters stop not short of attempts 
to corrupt the municipal courts, and to bribe the officers 
of public safety into collusion and silence. The role 
of iniquitous traffics and of evil agencies, all instituted 
and employed in the interests of mammon, is too long 
for review. The whole list furnishes a dismal, frightful, 
and tragic arraignment of human nature. 

But perhaps, for our present purpose, the most 
pertinent phase of the larger question is that which is 
now staged in the relations between capital and labor. 
Aside from the two great forces which may not improperly 
be designated as capital and labor, there is a large other 
section which is sometimes named as the "middle class." 
With this latter class we need not here concern ourselves. 

In the last sixty years the wealth of this nation has 
increased well up toward two thousand per cent. Our 
present national wealth does not fall far, if any, short 
of $140,000,000,000. This figure is something amazing, 
and yet it is likely to be vastly increased in near 
decades to come. It may in a general way be safely 
said that the vast wealth-producing power of America 
came hand in hand with the general introduction of 
machinery. To the economic student it is but a 
truism to say that with the introduction of machinery 
the relations of labor to capital were not only radically, 
but well-nigh universally, changed. 

The introduction of machinery meant the passing out 
of the private artisan. It meant the advent of the 



i 4 6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

big factory and the big capitalistic combination. It 
was the prophecy, quick of culmination, of what we 
now see, namely, upon the one hand, huge corporations 
in control of railroads, factories, and all the implements 
of production; upon the other hand, a vast army of labor 
empty-handed, waiting at the gates of the corporation 
to sell its toil. 

The situation does not require much analysis. It 
is evident that in any industrial conflict the corporation 
will have immense advantage over labor. Allan L. 
Benson calls attention to the fact that "The Stanley 
Steel Committee's investigation showed that by a sys- 
tem of interlocking directorates, eighteen men control 
$35,000,000,000 of industrial property." The corpora- 
tions are in position to set the price both upon products 
and upon labor. The corporations, without reference 
to larger public needs, have the power to limit production 
to the line of most satisfactory profit to their directors. 
The corporations can water their stock, either for the 
purpose of selling at an exorbitant price to an innocent 
public, or to cover up the appearance of earning in- 
ordinate dividends on capital invested. 

The corporations can at any time close a factory, 
and thus throw a thousand men out of employment, 
and the men are helpless. The corporations, many 
of them, use automatic machinery which can readily 
be worked by women and children. The labor of women 
and children is cheaper than that of men. And so where 
the State has not interfered — and the State has inter- 
fered in too few cases — delicate women and sensitive 
growing children are overtaxed in the relentless demand 



PLUTOCRACY 147 

to keep pace with machinery. The corporations, by 
the monopoly of raw material and control of the markets, 
have largely succeeded in suppressing competition as 
against themselves. But real competition is still left 
to do its depressing work in the labor world. Skilled 
and organized labor is able to t ke reasonable care of 
its own interests in the wage market, though its margins 
of surplus are always narrow. 

But aside from skilled and organized labor there is 
always a vast contingent of less skilled or unskilled labor 
which is absolutely dependent upon employment for 
daily bread. Under corporate regulation of the labor 
market, there are at best always in this country a mil- 
lion unemployed persons. In times of trade depression 
this number is likely to be greatly increased. This 
means that with certain grades of labor, at times with 
pretty much all grades, there is always a desperate 
condition of want. The laborer is compelled to sell 
his labor at any price he can command, however meager 
the price. It means in multitudes of cases that wives 
and children must all seek some outside work in order 
that the family may live at all. 

There is an enormous aggregate of prosperity in the 
country, but as between the corporations and the labor 
world, the division of this prosperity is inordinately 
one-sided. The representatives of the corporations are 
the capitalists. They control the banks, own the palaces, 
the pleasure yachts, the high-priced automobiles, and 
they command for themselves and families every material 
comfort and luxury which money may purchase. Their 
children may enjoy the most costly educational advan- 



i 4 8 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

tages, all the benefits of travel, and they are recognized 
as the heirs of a privileged class. 

On the other hand, there is a great army, outnumbering 
many times the corporate capitalists, which is made 
up of simply wage-earners. This army neither owns 
the factories in which it toils, nor does it own the tools 
of production. It is made up of empty-handed workers. 
For the most part, it has no ownership in the humble 
dwellings which shelter its families. Its bank account, 
at best, furnishes but a frail barrier between its members 
and the disasters of want and sickness. Its children 
enter life, many of them greatly handicapped by poor 
physical and moral inheritance. Nearly all of them 
are under the social and industrial doom of adversity. 
The wages of the rank and file of this industrial army 
are inexorably held to a low level, not even in the most 
favorable cases such as at all proximately to permit 
such expenditure and luxury as that which may be 
easily affordable by the capitalist. This army always 
marches on the borders of dependence and want. Its 
members look forward, if at all, to an old age when they 
shall either be the wards of their children or of public 
charity. When the slender stipend of their wages 
ceases to come, multitudes of them look out into a world, 
God only knows how dreary. 

And, if this army is one of discontent, who shall wonder! 
It is a simple irony to say that these men are receiving 
far better wages, and they enjoy more physical comfort, 
than were ever known to their fathers. If this were 
true, it would scarcely amount to a mitigation in the 
case. It might be said of the capitalists that they too 



PLUTOCRACY 149 

are receiving many times over the emoluments which 
came to their fathers, and for this reason they ought 
to be more than content. They ought on this account 
promptly to initiate policies of liberal distribution of 
their surplus revenues for the benefit of their less priv- 
ileged neighbors 

The truth is that the laborers live in a different world 
from that with which their fathers were familiar. If 
in this age of multiplied facilities and conveniences of 
life, factors which ought to be within the reach of all, 
and which ought to add real values to every life, they 
were content to live just as their fathers did, they would 
be less human than they are. But when the changed 
conditions are fairly measured it does not appear true 
that the modern laborer receives better wages or is 
better conditioned. The scale of the fathers' living 
bore no comparison with the necessitated high costs 
of the present day. The father, if a tradesman, owned 
the tools of his craft, had his own workshop and his 
own customers The worker of to-day is the owner of 
no tools, of no shop, and it would be impossible for 
him to compete against modern machinery for customers 
in any craft. 

The naked and tragic fact is that since civilization 
began there has been no class of nominally free workers 
who have been more absolutely at the mercy of an im- 
personal, irresponsible, and irresistible despotism than 
are the laborers to-day under corporate employment. 
It is no wonder that enlightened writers, analyzing 
carefully the whole situation, have characterized the 
domination of corporate capital over labor as the 



iSo CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

most far-reaching and oppressive despotism known to 
history. 

Many millions of men, citizens in America, a land 
of abundant fruitfulness, witnessing all around them 
the rich reveling in surplusage and luxury, are com- 
pelled to know that themselves and their children are 
doomed to exclusion from any generous participation 
in the inordinate revenues appropriated by directorates 
to whom their own very lives and services are given 
in pawn for pitiable stipends. 

And does anybody really wonder that the army of 
labor is an army of discontent? This discontent is 
not only universal, but it is mightily prophetic. It 
witnesses eloquently to the growing democratic sense 
of the value of human rights. It is a revolt of the 
common intelligence against all social and industrial 
injustice. It is a revolt that will not lessen in volume 
or energy. Its voice is sure to be heard and heeded at 
the very seats of corporate power. The present dis- 
content of the laboring world is but the mere whispering 
of a pent-up power which carries in itself the moral 
dynamic of social and industrial revolution. May God 
grant that in this field Righteousness and Peace shall 
come together for early and decisive counsel! 

But what has all this to do with the Church? Much, 
every way. The Church, for one thing, is regarded 
by many of the poor as a luxury not to be afforded. 
If they cannot pay a full quota for its financial support, 
many accept the alternative of detaching themselves 
altogether. The pride of the poor, foolishly, will not 
brook, even before the altars of the sanctuary, social 



PLUTOCRACY 151 

distinctions which they are unable to ignore. But, 
after all, it is not so much poverty which holds the masses 
of the poor in alienated separation from the Church 
as a widely prevalent feeling that the Church is not 
really the friend of the poor, that it does not seriously 
welcome them to its services, and that it is willing to 
make no great sacrifices for the purchase of their wel- 
fare. There is a wide practical conviction among wage- 
earners that the churches are principally conducted by, 
and in the interests of, the privileged classes. They 
feel that the money paid by the rich for the support 
of exclusive churches is money which they themselves 
have really earned, and the resentment thus awakened 
is more widespread than it is pleasant to contemplate. 
The poor widely feel that the Church, including its 
ministry, is in an attitude of paying undue and obse- 
quious honor to the rich, and that the one institution 
in society, within whose inclosures the rich and the poor 
ought to be treated alike as the common children of 
God, is in an offensive measure under the autocracy 
of men known more for the arrogance of wealth than 
for the graces of Christian character. It is of interest 
to note the attention which this fact is receiving in 
current literature. 

It is not necessary to literalize over-much or to apply 
the philosophy of Winston Churchill's Inside the Cup. 
Yet the plot of this really great story pretty much turns 
on the determined purpose of a single arrogant and 
unscrupulous plutocrat to control both the policy of 
his church and the official utterances and conduct of 
its rector. Mr. Harrison's V. V.'s Eyes, another power- 



152 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

ful novel of recent issue, turns upon the contest between 
a wealth both heartless and shoddy in its shameful 
treatment of poor employees in the "Heth Works" and 
the spirit of a poor young physician of transparently 
beautiful Christian character who gave himself in con- 
tinual sacrifice and finally to a tragic death in the service 
of the poor. 

The hero of Basil King's The Way Home, himself 
a child of the rectory, incensed by the treatment 
which his own father received in old age from rich 
parishioners, and finally entering upon business life with 
the policy of considering no one's interest but his own, 
becoming rich, says one day to his morally sensitive 
wife that even she would not have married him if he 
had not had money. He says to her: "You cared for 
me because I am what I am. And I am what I am 
because I've got money. How I got it is secondary 
to you, as it is secondary to everybody else. The world 
is full of high-principled, right-meaning people who 
haven't words enough to express their scorn of the man 
who grows rich by what they choose to consider im- 
proper means, but who, when it comes to personal deal- 
ings, can't show him too plainly how much they respect 
him." 

And then at her protest he adds: "I don't put you 
lower, darling, than I put the whole order of bishops, 
priests, and deacons, and all the other idealists who 
are so easily outraged by our brutal modern ways of 
growing rich. They're awfully fluent in words; but 
once get rich, and" — he snapped his fingers — "you can 
do what you like with them." 



PLUTOCRACY 153 

One of the most vivid of Mrs. Humphry Ward's 
recent books, Richard Meynell, furnishes a plot which 
turns upon the same conditions of conflict between 
plutocracy and the individual's right of free thought 
as are involved in the instances above cited. 

The Rev. William Muir, of Scotland, who has written 
one of the ablest books which have yet appeared on Chris- 
tianity and Labor, himself the son of an artisan, and 
having had in a long pastoral experience close and sym- 
pathetic contact with labor, says: 

There is nothing which is more fruitful in class hatred and civil war 
than the caste which still prevails in the Christian Church. Nothing 
has done more to promote the growth of the anti- Christian spirit which 
prevails among many sections of the working classes. Every new set 
of statistics of church attendance shows an ever smaller proportion of 
the community at public worship, and with the exception of the very 
rich the working classes seem more completely estranged than any other 
section. In some towns it is comparatively rare for genuine working- 
men to be connected with a church. Even what are paraded as working- 
class congregations are composed for the most part, so far as the men 
are concerned, and they are always the minority, of clerks, foremen, 
and small shopkeepers, and seHom have any considerable number of 
artisans. ... As a workingman who has been among workingmen all my 
days, and the son of a Christian artisan, I cannot pretend to be surprised 
that the laborers of our land cannot see that the Church of the living 
God has been their friend and champion, as it should have been. . . . 
Even yet caste is nowhere more powerful than in the Church of Christ. 
Nowhere is money mightier, and it seldom happens that inconvenient 
questions are asked as to how the money was made. It is enough that 
it be there to insure respect and influence. Nor is there anywhere more 
of that patronage of the poor which is quite as hateful as truckling to 
the rich. As for the results of all this, there is overwhelming testimony 
to the alienation of the working classes from the churches. 

To these testimonies cited from the prominent current 
literature of the day indefinite other statements could 
be added from like sources. This consensus of state- 
ment concerning the undue influence of plutocratic 



154 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

wealth in the counsels of the Church is no accident. 
The authors furnishing this testimony are among the 
foremost seers of the times. They have high gifts for 
interpreting the social and industrial thought-movements 
of the age for practical busy men and women. This 
united testimony is significant. It points to a great 
fundamental necessity on the part of the Church to 
revise its own spirit and methods. It is really a call 
to the Church to seek renewal of its life in the Spirit 
of its Master. 



SOCIALISM 



155 



Competition, the hope of definite personal reward, and the fear of 
definite personal loss, which experience has shown to be extremely power- 
ful forces in economic life, would either disappear or be greatly diminished 
under Socialism, and the Socialist is unable to provide adequate sub- 
stitutes. . . . The evidence that the Socialist movement is unfriendly, 
if not actively hostile, to religion, and that the Socialist philosophy is 
incompatible with religious convictions, is overwhelming. — Professor 
John Augustine Ryan. 

The fact is that Socialism is the necessary spiritual product of cap- 
italism. It has been formulated by that class which has borne the sins 
of capitalism in its own body and known them by heart. It stands for 
the holy determination of that wronged and embittered class to eliminate 
those sins forever from the social life of mankind. Thus, Socialism is 
the historical Nemesis of capitalism and follows it like its shadow. The 
only influence that can long seal the mind of the industrial working class 
against the doctrines of Socialism is the power of religion in the hands 
of a strong Church. — Professor Walter Rauschenbusch. 

What Socialism seems to believe, and to base upon, is the tenet that 
human nature has already attained, and is already perfect. If all men 
were true, pure, kind, honest, industrious, self-denying, some kind of 
Socialist state might be organized in a month. But in such an event 
the world would neither need nor desire Socialism. Any kind of state, 
even the most purely individualistic, would be efficient. The rich and 
the poor would meet together and the Lord would be the Maker of them 
all. But so long as some men are evil-minded, and foul in desire, and 
vile in habit, Socialism, of the kind commended to us, is impossible. — 
W. M. Clow, D.D. 



156 



CHAPTER IX 

SOCIALISM 

A force, and a rapidly growing one, which stoutly 
challenges popular interest as against the Church, is 
Socialism. Socialism purposes to secure its end by 
political methods. It is, therefore, essentially a polit- 
ical movement. As such, up to the present time, it 
has secured far greater volume and momentum in Europe 
than in America. It has been represented in the German 
Parliament for about forty-five years, but in all other 
countries it does not date back at farthest beyond twenty- 
five years. In the United States it entered the field 
as a distinct political movement in 1892, polling at 
that election 21,164 votes. In 191 2 the party cast 
900,672 votes. 

In 1867 the socialistic votes of the world did not 
exceed 30,000. To-day the socialistic vote of the world 
exceeds 10,000,000. The movement now commands 
recognition in the public life of at least twenty-six na- 
tions. It presents one of the most compact and well- 
systematized organisms known to the modern world. 
In every nation in which it is organized its party roll 
is made up on the basis of dues-paying, active and per- 
manent membership. The national organizations not 
only have their State conventions as often as may seem 
required, but in every three years there is held an Inter- 
national Congress for joint deliberation and action. 

157 



158 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

An International Socialist Bureau composed of all 
national parties, meeting periodically, transacts its bus- 
iness through a local executive committee and a permanent 
secretary. It is the boast of this organization that it 
can mobilize a larger force than any single government 
in the world. 

Nearly all the organized armies of labor — the trade- 
unionists, the cooperative movements, and others, 
numbering in all many millions — are lined up behind 
Socialism, "acting in accord with it on all questions 
of great public importance." It is of interest to note 
that in the United States alone there are now more than 
three hundred publications issued distinctively in the 
interests of Socialism. Five of these are daily news- 
papers, ten are monthly magazines, and the rest are 
weeklies. While most of these are issued in English, 
yet publications appear wherever a foreign language 
is much in vogue in the country. The above facts, 
for which I acknowledge a principal indebtedness to 
Mr. Morris Hillquit, a recognized authority on the 
subject, will for our purpose sufficiently represent the 
trend of Socialistic growth. It is a movement to which 
by no means can either the Christian or political fore- 
caster afford indifference. 

For defmement of what Socialism really means, I 
quote what is probably Mr. Hillquit's most recent utter- 
ance on the subject: 

As a practical movement Socialism stands primarily for industrial 
readjustment. It seeks to secure greater planfulness in the production 
of wealth and greater equity in its distribution. Concretely stated, 
the Socialist program agitates a reorganization of the existing industrial 
system on the basis of collective or national ownership of the social tools. 



SOCIALISM 159 

It demands that the control of the machinery of wealth-creation be taken 
from the individual capitalist and placed in the hands of the nation, 
to be organized and operated for the benefit of the whole people. The 
program calls for radical changes in the existing industrial machinery, 
political structure, and social relations. The form of society which 
would result from such changes is usually designated in the literature 
on the subject as the social state, or the Socialist ideal. 

From a comparison of numerous definitions, the above, 
I judge, is as representative and accurate a statement 
of the basic philosophy of Socialism as can be found 
in so brief compass. 

It must be promptly admitted that the Socialist creed 
amplified gives expression to many nobly humane, and 
even Christian, ideals. Socialism is opposed to war 
in all forms, national or industrial. Its apostles claim 
that within very recent years it has prevented the 
occurrence of more than one international war. At 
the outbreak of the Italian-Turkish war the prime minister 
of Turkey officially submitted a memorial to the Inter- 
national Socialist Bureau, at Brussels, asking for the 
intervention of the Socialists in behalf of his outraged 
country. 

Socialism would abrogate all industrial strife by 
removing its causes. It proceeds upon the unyielding 
assumption that in the existing order, and inevitably so, 
capitalism and labor are aligned against each other 
as two separate and irreconcilably antagonistic forces. 
That in this irrepressible conflict capitalism, by reason 
of controlling the appliances and tools of profit-making, 
has labor at an immense disadvantage. 

The industries of our country are rapidly concentrating in the hands 
of an ever-diminishing number of powerful financial concerns. The 
trusts, monopolies, and gigantic industrial combinations are coming to 



160 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

be ruling factors in the life of the nation, industrial, political, and spirit- 
ual, and the masses of the people are sinking into a condition of ever- 
greater dependence. The number of propertyless wage-earners is on 
the increase; their material existence is growing more and more pre- 
carious, and the spirit of dissatisfaction and revolt is developing among 
them. The relations between the classes of producers and the employ- 
ing classes are marked by intense, though not always conscious, class- 
antagonism and by overt class struggles. . . . There is no more harmony 
between privately owned capital and wage-earning labor than there is 
between wolf and lamb. 1 

The conditions of conflict as set forth in the above 
are universally assumed by Socialists as dire facts in 
our present civilization. Socialism would do away 
with these conditions by making impossible the private 
ownership of the appliances and tools of profit -making 
industries. It would hasten the day when all large 
private fortunes would be done away with. Just the 
process by which this should be effected is not altogether 
clear, even from socialistic utterances. It might be 
inferred that some Socialists think the evil of private 
fortunes should be eliminated by one bold act of govern- 
ment confiscation, transferring these fortunes at once 
to national control for the common good. By others 
it is advocated that a large tax should be levied against 
these estates year by year, effecting their early absorption 
into the public treasury. Still others advocate the 
purchase by the State of all corporate and private prop- 
erties of a wealth-producing character. 

In any event, it is not proposed in the socialistic 
state that there shall exist large private fortunes. Either 
by taxation, or by some system of government limita- 
tion, it will be secured that all citizens will stand on a 



Hillquit. 



SOCIALISM 161 

plane of equality in possession of the fruits of wealth- 
producing factors. 

The socialistic scheme proposes many humane factors. 
It suggests the adequate care of the sick in hospitals 
or in the home, institutions in which the incompetent, 
unfortunates, and the helpless shall be amply cared 
for, and it calls for old-age pensions. It pledges itself 
to bestow upon every productive man, woman, and child 
an adequate living income. It suggests special support 
for mothers, so that they may meet the expenses of them- 
selves and children independently of husband or father. 

It promises art galleries, parks, public baths, cheap 
transportation, and all sorts of attractions and utilities 
to meet the common tastes and needs. It proposes 
a democracy of education for the childhood and youth 
of the nation. It purposes shortened hours of labor, 
and large margins of leisure for all workers. It believes 
that by bringing to the common life conditions of ma- 
terial sufficiency and comfort it will thereby greatly 
reduce the evils of intemperance and prostitution. So- 
cialism has a mightily optimistic faith in itself. It 
promises every material good which may seem essential 
to human welfare. 

It must be confessed that for the poor and toiling 
masses who confide in its gospel Socialism presents a 
program of great attractiveness. Not even the gospel 
of Christ proposes at first hand any such material 
paradise as that which Socialism pledges. And it may 
be emphasized that much of what is promised is, from 
the standpoint of Christian idealism, of a highly 
approvable and valuable order. 



i6 2 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

But now, having sought fairly to state the positions 
of Socialism, and having conceded full approval of, 
and sympathy with, many of its ideals, I still must judge 
Socialism at best as a veritable Utopia. It is an iridescent 
and delusive dream. It has been well named the ' 'great 
illusion." Its whole scheme presents one maze of im- 
practicabilities. 

Consider, for instance, the socialistic scheme of prop- 
erty. All profit-making appliances and tools are to 
belong to the state, and by the state are to be admin- 
istered for the common good. Just how far in the 
socialistic state private ownership of material value is 
to be permissible is not clear. But if individuals are 
entitled to ownership in such measure as may be pur- 
chased from the thriftily saved surplus of their own 
earnings, it is evident that values so secured will by 
so much be in addition to, and distinct from, property 
controlled and administered by the state. By so much, 
private property, while it may be taxed for state pur- 
poses, will not be directly under state administration. 
It is thus clear that there will be a certain margin of 
property, the proceeds of which will not be administered 
by the state for the common good. 

Now, let us suppose that the wealth, public and 
private, of the United States amounts to $140,000,000,000. 
This is probably an outside estimate. We have ninety- 
five millions of inhabitants. If the entire property of the 
nation were distributed equally, there would be for each 
individual a value of something less than $1,475. Differ- 
ently stated, if the government were administrator, it 
would have for taking care of every man, woman, and 



SOCIALISM 163 

child, a capital approaching $1,475 P er person. On the 
supposition that all this capital had an earning capacity 
of five per cent, the income that could be allotted for 
each person would be less than $74 per year. This 
certainly would not mean wealth for the individual. 

But, as a matter of fact, a vast proportion of this 
wealth could not be made to yield any direct income, 
so that there would be available far less than $74 per 
capita. Evidently, the citizenship of the socialistic 
state could neither be made up of private capitalists 
nor idlers. There would not be available wealth to 
permit a citizenship of capitalists. The limitation of 
capital would compel a nation of laborers. Only labor 
could produce the necessities of life for a people so placed. 
I understand clearly that it inheres in the socialistic 
philosophy that all able-bodied citizens shall be pro- 
ducers — laborers. To the question, "What will you do 
with the work-shy and the lazy?" the answer of the 
plain Socialist was, "Shoot them." Socialism in this 
respect agrees with the precepts of the New Testament, 
"If a man will not work, neither let him eat." But 
on the theory of all wealth-producing agencies being 
administered by the nation for the common good, one 
wonders whether the abundant leisure which socialistic 
writers promise to labor amounts to anything more 
than a delusive dream. 

Under existing conditions, there is a vast amount of 
capital so invested as to be susceptible neither of division 
nor income for the common good. A multitude of private 
and costly homes could be cited as illustrative of this 
truth. Indeed, under the present order, an order which 



i6 4 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

has come through a long process of evolution, very many 
of the products of invested capital do not at all lend 
themselves to the socialistic state. If popular suffrage 
should overwhelmingly place the national government 
in the hands of Socialists, not much imagination is 
required to foresee that to adjust existing conditions 
to the socialistic ideal would prove for the socialistic 
statesman a most bewildering and chaotic task. So- 
cialism, in the light of its most perfected theoretical 
development, is, as applied to the state, an untried 
theory. It is perfectly safe to assume that Socialism 
has thus far furnished no rational or conclusive demon- 
stration of its fitness as a supreme modus for the state. 

If wealth-producing factors are to be under state 
direction, it is evident that labor must also be under 
the same direction. This must necessitate the dis- 
tribution of labor also as a matter of state control. Labor 
must be distributed to the points where required work 
can best be done. It is not easy under such a theory 
to escape the suggestion of at least a quasi-military 
direction which shall practically assign to whole armies 
of men not only location of both their work and hours, 
but as well the very kind of work which they shall be 
permitted to do. It seems self-evident that under such 
a system, no more than under existing conditions, could 
labor escape the domination of the boss. Work, espe- 
cially the kind of work which would be required for 
the collective interests of the state, would not be spon- 
taneously performed. It would have to be done under 
the direction of authority and leadership. 

Such work might be under the supervision of duly 



SOCIALISM 165 

appointed commissions. But under whatever method, 
it would be tantamount to the same old regime of 
director and directed, of master and servant, of overseer 
and toiler. There is inevitable in the situation a grim 
suggestion of the unescapable thralldom of labor under 
some kind of mastership. 

The socialistic visionaries are not sufficiently reck- 
oning with the facts of human nature. The most 
plausible elaborations of Socialism more than suggest 
that the same kind of rivalries, dissension;: , and dis- 
contents will continue to exist which under the present 
social and industrial structures work disorder and dis- 
aster. The practical inauguration of Socialism would 
not only work sore disillusion to its promoters, but it 
would bring perilous, if not incurable, chaos to the 
normal order of society. 

It may be admitted that many departments of purely 
public service might be successfully administered under 
socialistic ideals. The postal systems, railroads, telegraph 
and telephone service, water, gas, and electric supplies, 
police service, the common highways, and very many 
other agencies which are organized purely in the interests 
of public needs — these might all conceivably be managed 
under some system of governmental commissions. But 
from a high social and moral standpoint, the finest 
and most valuable possessions for many lives are of 
a character which can neither be secured nor regulated 
by any public supervision. 

The selection of a wife, the choice of one's calling, 
the encouragement and development of art, poetry, the 
identification and direction in the young for effectiveness 



166 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

in literature, science, and invention, the assurance of 
the adequate creation and endowment of institutions 
for research and the advancement of knowledge — all 
this, and vastly more, the very factors which give embel- 
lishment and value to civilization itself, might just 
as well be left with a police system, as to the regulation 
of a public commission under a socialistic state. Per- 
sonal liberty so exercised as not to interfere with the 
common rights of others, should be treated as a thing 
of inalienable and invincible right. 

The very genius of the socialistic state is at many 
vital points not only repressive of individual liberty, 
but it indicates no scope or opportunity for the develop- 
ment of the exceptional individuality. The development 
of exceptional personalities calls for exceptional con- 
ditions. The guarantee of such conditions nowhere 
appears in the socialistic program. The vision of So- 
cialism itself does not have its genesis in views which 
have intelligently or sympathetically embraced the 
highest refinements of civilization. The promoters of 
Socialism have been largely absorbed in trying to invent 
a system which will yield to all classes, irrespective of 
social or intellectual rank, abundant bread, comfortable 
shelter, and a generous leisure. The importance of 
these aims should not be underestimated. But they 
only partially, and meagerly, represent life's values. 
Man is not to live by bread alone. Nor does his life 
consist in the abundance of material possessions. Life 
is something more than meat, more than raiment. 

The prophets of Socialism who are promising a ma- 
terial paradise for the world's toilers seem of limited 



SOCIALISM 167 

vision. They have no seerlike grasp upon, they give 
no sufficient emphasis to, either the attainments, the 
possibilities of, or the provisional needs for, the cultural 
life of humanity. Their scheme, measured at its largest 
and interpreted at its best, falls woefully short of pro- 
viding adequate nurture for the social, intellectual, 
artistic, and moral wants of human society. It is not 
necessary to charge other than entire good faith to the 
prophets of Socialism as they make their optimistic 
pledges to the world. But the possibility of their making 
good these pledges is to be judged in the light of general 
experience, and on the observed principles of human 
conduct. The promises may be uttered with all the 
emphasis of sincerity, but, tested by the world's larger 
needs, they are likely to prove as elusive as the voice 
of a siren. 

Private wealth, and in generous amounts, will be 
requisite to initiate and to endow the needed agencies 
of human culture. Legislative committees, senates and 
congresses are proverbially perfunctory and tardy in 
authorizing grants for the public benefit. Their most 
commendable benefactions are usually those of com- 
promise, shaped by concessions made in order to secure 
a majority support to the authorizing measure. The 
private owner, or a combination of private owners like- 
minded, having clear vision and philanthropic purposes, 
will always be needed to pioneer the way for, and to 
lay the foundations of, such cultural institutions as 
will ever be demanded by the world's growing ideals. 

To depend upon legislative commissions to take the 
initiative in providing for such institutions would be 



168 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

like tying the world's advancement to the wheelless 
and dragging chariots of the Egyptians. This is not 
to declare either the desirability or the legitimacy of 
inordinate private fortunes. There is something in- 
herently wrong in an industrial condition which will 
permit one man on the avenue to be the possessor of 
$400,000,000, while a million men, within a few miles 
of his palatial residence, are in daily struggle for bread 
to feed their hunger. 

Let there by all means be a system of taxation, drastic 
if needs be, which shall make it forever hereafter impos- 
sible for any person to amass so large a private fortune. 
But between this condition, on the one hand, and the de- 
mands of Socialism upon the other, there would be little 
to choose. It is not easy to find terms by which fittingly 
to characterize the evils of monopolistic and selfish 
wealth. It is also true that the socialistic philosophy 
has not yet furnished demonstration of its ability to 
meet more than the merest segment of human needs. 

Essential inequity inheres fundamentally in the social- 
istic scheme. Socialism is so absorbed in looking after 
the needs of the under-man, its entire interest is so 
confined to this man, that thus far it has theoretically 
failed to suggest due provision for those who are not 
under-men. It fails in promise of due incentive for 
action, or suitable reward for achievement, for those 
who under the present order of society and industry 
are proving themselves exceptional benefactors. Per- 
sons have lived, and others will live, who at large sac- 
rifice of ordinary comforts have wrought out inventions 
which have proved of inestimable value to entire civiliza- 



SOCIALISM 169 

tions. Here is a man who in personal poverty and 
with incredible toil makes a scientific discovery by 
which the knowledge of mankind is greatly enriched. 
Copernicus, Newton, and Darwin, in a hand-to-hand 
struggle with nature's mysteries, gave to the world a 
new learning. 

The modern sciences, sciences which are dissipating 
ignorance, destroying superstition, flooding nature's dark 
places with light, giving to man a vast new knowledge 
of himself, yielding for the exploration of human thought 
a new universe of ever-growing wonders — all these are 
the creations largely of lone toilers in cloister, laboratory, 
or in some open field of nature. 

What incentive does Socialism thus far offer for such 
high pursuits? What commensurate rewards is it pre- 
pared to bestow upon men of exceptional brain and 
genius, men without whom, as all history bears testi- 
mony, the race will make no material, intellectual, or 
moral progress. And if some enthusiastic socialistic 
writer should pledge most ample rewards for such workers, 
what hostages can he furnish in assuring the fulfillment 
of his pledge? Let Socialism with its materialistic ideals 
prevail, and the very inventive and inspirational men, 
men who are the real initiators in all progress, would 
be under the handicap of an unsympathetic and 
obstructive regime. 

But aside from consideration of exceptional and con- 
structive talent, the socialistic philosophy does not 
give fair encouragement to the virtues of ordinary thrift. 
Here are two laborers of equal opportunity, and in gen- 
eral with equal demands upon their abilities. The 



i;o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

one is industrious, temperate, frugal. He practices the 
creed of plain living and high thinking. He is con- 
scientious in discharge of his daily duties, reads good 
books, makes for himself a bank account, and earns 
a position of respect and influence among men. The 
other man is a free liver. He is a spendthrift, reckless 
of his personal reputation and influence. He is a patron 
of the saloon, and the higher interests of his own family- 
are sacrificed to his vicious courses of living. Now, 
Socialism, as a governmental scheme, treats both these 
men alike. They are to have equal opportunities and 
equal rewards. Socialism as a theory is not adjustive 
to the social and moral deserts or ill deserts of individuals. 
Its very basic and central philosophy precludes it from 
dealing with society on the plane of moral values. But 
to put two men of diverse habits, as indicated, on the 
plane of equality is a moral absurdity. The one de- 
serves well of society and is clearly entitled to the benefits 
of his material thrift. The other has forfeited the 
respect of his fellowmen, and, if he is a material bankrupt, 
for this condition he has no one to blame but himself. 
Sane moral reason can by no possibility put these men 
on a par. They are wide apart, both in their personal 
characters and merits. 

Socialism at best is but theoretical. It has no fixed 
thought-status. Its boldest position has time and again 
been driven into retreat under critical fire. Mr. H. G. 
Wells, in The Great State, a book which gives varied 
elaboration of the socialistic ideals, says, frankly: 

The final form which Socialism may take cannot as yet be set down. 
Its problems have not yet been clearly stated. The adjustments which 



SOCIALISM 171 

are required cannot be foreseen. Its economics demand a reconsidera- 
tion. The difficulties of its administration and government, and especially 
the terrifying number of its army of officials, are riddles without answer 
from any quarter. All that can be said is that the goal is a state where 
every one shall be well fed, well housed, well played, and as happy as 
men can be made who must face the unescapable sternness of life. 

Mr. Hillquit in one of his latest interviews says: 

There is nothing sacred in the writings even of the founders of the 
modern Socialist philosophy. Some of the economic doctrines of Ferdinand 
Lassalle, and many cardinal planks of his practical program, have been 
unable to withstand the test of experience and criticism, and have been 
discarded by the Socialist movement. Some of the expressed views of 
Marx and Engels have been modified by their Socialist followers, and 
generally the Socialist movement is constantly engaged in revising its 
creed as well as its tactics. Socialism is a modern, progressive movement 
engaged in practical, everyday struggles, and it cannot escape the in- 
fluence of changing social conditions or growing economic knowledge. 
The International Socialist Movement is still Marxian, because the fun- 
damental social and economic doctrines of Karl Marx, his collaborators 
and disciples, still hold good in the eyes of the vast majority of Socialists; 
but in the details of its methods and modes of action the Socialist move- 
ment to-day is quite different from what it was in the days of Marx. 

Socialism proposes a radical change of the world's 
industrial order, a change which will most drastically 
affect all the social conditions of existing civilizations. 
The end it seeks in this stupendous program is to elevate 
all the poor to a plane of plenteous living. It proposes 
a task in itself of immeasurable difficulty, yet frankly 
acknowledging that it does not clearly see the methods 
by which it is to be done, much less does it have any 
definite forecast of the momentous consequences of weal 
or disaster which must ensue upon this world-change. 
The magnitude of the proposition is equaled only by 
its audacity. It is like inviting the human family to 
embark on an untried ship, upon an uncharted sea. 
Upon the quarter-deck there is no experienced admiral, 



172 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

and beyond the stormy outlook there is no definite 
haven of safety, no assured lands of plenty and peace. 
From a Christian viewpoint, the final word to be 
said about Socialism is that it is materialistic in its 
philosophy. It is fatally lacking in the incentive and 
transforming power of high moral and spiritual ideals. 
It must be admitted that in the physical betterments 
which it proposes for society there is great theoretical 
allurement. It were, indeed, a consummation devoutly 
to be wished, if from the common bounty every table 
could be supplied with wholesome food, and to all chil- 
dren could be offered warm clothing and a high nurture 
of the schools. But in proposing all this Socialism has 
been absolutely blind to the imperative needs of the moral 
and spiritual in men, needs which if left unmet will 
leave civilization in the condition of the old Roman 
world as described by Arnold: 

On that hard pagan world disgust 

And secret loathing fell; 
Deep weariness and sated lust 

Made human life a hell. 

Ramsey Macdonald says: "Socialism has no more to 
do with a man's religion than it has to do with the color 
of his hair. Socialism deals with secular things, not 
with ultimate beliefs." Keir Hardie, in his Serfdom 
to Socialism, says: "It cannot be too emphatically stated 
that Socialism takes no more cognizance of the religious 
opinions of its adherents than does either Liberalism or 
Conservatism." 

Mr. Hillquit in his famous debate with Professor 
John A. Ryan on "Socialism: A Promise or a Menace?" 



SOCIALISM 173 

says: "Socialism, on the one hand, demands the com- 
plete separation of state and church, and, on the other, 
it stands for absolute religious liberty. These two 
fundamental principles determine the attitude which 
the Socialist state must take on religion and worship. 
It is safe to predict that a Socialist administration will 
confer no special rights, privileges, or exemptions on 
the Church, nor will it give it official sanction or recog- 
nition. On the other hand, it will not interfere in the 
slightest degree with its existence, teachings, and prac- 
tices." This, while ostensibly plausible, is in itself a 
betrayal of an utterly agnostic, and either an unfriendly 
or a blind, attitude on the part of Socialism toward the 
fundamental spiritual character and needs of human 
nature. 

If man, as the sane world has quite universally be- 
lieved, is primarily a spiritual being, and as such is a 
citizen of a moral order of the universe divinely ordained, 
then, a state "which will confer no special rights, priv- 
ileges, or exemptions on the Church" (religion, worship), 
"nor will give it official sanction or recognition" — such 
a state, from a Christian standpoint, would stand as a 
monstrosity in civilization. A civilization which would 
fail in recognition of duty to provide for the all-around 
education and culture of the moral life of its people 
would be a civilization self-arrayed against the moral 
order of the universe. 

As an interesting symptom of the trend of socialistic 
philosophy, it is suggestive that Mr. William English 
Walling, himself a literary authority on the subject, 
has just published a book in which he deals with the 



i 7 4 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

ethical aspects of Socialism. He exalts Socialism to 
the rank of the exclusive religion. And this is really 
what multitudes of the less thoughtful subjects of the 
movement are doing. Mr. Walling's socialistic pre- 
dictions call for the final disappearance of the individual 
family home, a communistic home being substituted in 
its place. With the disappearing of the home will go 
the old relation of the sexes, and the defenses of the 
old morality. He says, "The overwhelming majority 
of Socialists in all countries where Socialism has become 
an important factor in society' ' believe "that all we 
know by the name of religion is likely to disappear with- 
out any violent attack." 

A man in Mr. Hillquit's position may naturally shrink 
from publicly conceding that Socialism as a movement 
is infiltrated through and through with an animus hostile 
to Christianity. But the fact is too much in the open. 
It cannot be disguised. The dominating minds of 
Socialism are overwhelmingly anti-Christian. And, as 
Professor Ryan sanely suggests, "What is of serious 
consequence is the fact that the Socialist movement of 
to-day is an active and far-reaching influence for the 
spread of irreligion among large sections of the popula- 
tion in many countries." 

The above testimony, I judge, is quite representative 
of the general attitude of the socialistic cult toward 
religious and spiritual questions. As a creed Socialism 
lays much stress upon conditions of life which shall be 
free from physical hardships. In this creed animal 
comfort is a sine qua non. It may be questioned whether 
this very view is not a heresy of the first rank. God 



SOCIALISM i 75 

has nowhere indicated that physical ease has any very 
important place in his scheme of moral development 
for the race. Labor is God's appointed mint from which 
alone can be coined the highest attainments of char- 
acter, the noblest achievements of service. Toil of both 
hand and brain is a necessity to the best development 
of the individual and to the highest welfare of society. 
Labor, so far from being a curse, is well-nigh God's 
one condition, and will always remain so, to the highest 
reach of soul. Masterful faculty, faculty which shall 
sway wide forces, must develop the thews of victory 
in surmounting obstacles and capturing achievements on 
toilsome pathways. All great, useful and lasting struc- 
tures of society represent toil — the combined energies of 
capital, of brain, and of brawn. The builders of great 
philosophies, and of great faiths, are men who have 
not primarily concerned themselves much about physical 
ease, but, rather, men who have studied to secure for 
themselves power for greater toil. No philosophy can 
change the essential nature of things. The constitution 
of the world and the conditions of human society are 
such as to require a working race. 

In the world's work there will always be grades of 
needed work, some of which will not be in themselves 
as congenial as other grades. It is not easy to see how 
some men are to escape doing some work which does 
not itself appeal to highest taste. The city needs scav- 
engers as surely as it needs magistrates. The ashes 
and garbage of homes must be disposed of, and 
the sewers cared for. The most ideal socialistic com- 
munity must, in these respects, be much as a fine ocean 



176 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

steamship. However elegant the people, apartments, and 
furnishings above deck, the thing cannot be navigated 
except at the expense of coal stokers who, far down 
below, and stripped to their waists, work in an atmos- 
phere of stifling heat and grime. And how much will 
Socialism be able to do to make ideal or easy the life 
of society's coal stokers? 

Socialism is yet far from the elaboration of adjust- 
ments which will inevitably be required from essential 
inequalities in human ability. God's endowments of 
men range all the way from genius down to the most 
ordinary of one-talented men. These varying grades by 
a fundamental law of nature, a law which acts of legis- 
lation will have little power to modify, must inevitably 
in the world's work find spheres for which their abilities 
specially ordain them. 

The limitation of Socialism is that it deals in mere 
externals. Its ideals are almost entirely materialistic. 
It assumes that if you surround men with the best ma- 
terial environment, you thereby secure to them the 
highest welfare and happiness. Now, all this may be 
immeasurably far from the truth. It is not the touch 
of outward environment, however important this may be, 
but motives dominating the soul which give highest 
value to character. Some men in spite of poor environ- 
ment conduct themselves in a spirit so wise, temperate, 
and virtuous, that they are happy and noble even in 
comparative poverty. Others, in command of all ma- 
terial good, are so slaves of excess as to make themselves 
objects of physical and moral loathing. 

Wealth, in multitudes of cases, has ministered only 



SOCIALISM 177 

to the bane and destruction of its possessors. In this 
wealthiest of countries, we are tragically reminded that 
wealth alone is no guarantee for nobility of manhood, 
that it gives no surety of the inviolable character of 
the marriage altar, nor of domestic purity and happi- 
ness within its palaces. Wealth but too often panders 
to the perversion and debasement of all that is noblest 
in human ideals. 

Neither Socialism, nor any other human system, can 
secure anything like equal happiness to men of antipodal 
habits of action and character. One of the worst arraign- 
ments to be made against Socialism is that by its very 
premises it robs genius of incentive, and promises an 
unearned contentment to the aimless and slothful. 

Socialism, as Christianity, makes its appeal to those 
who toil. But Socialism is not a religion. It is, and 
can be, no substitute for the gospel of Him who said, 
"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, 
and I will give you rest." 



PART FOURTH 
FACTORS PROPHETIC 



179 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 



181 



The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, 
and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. — Mat- 
thew 13. 33. 

In the reign of Decius, so runs the legend, seven youths in Ephesus 
who had confessed their Christian faith in the persecution, but after- 
ward escaped their persecutors, fell asleep in a cave in which they took 
refuge. When they awoke again, the next morning as they supposed 
they sent one of their number to the town to fetch food, and he was greatly 
astounded to find there everything completely changed. Heathenism 
had disappeared, the idol statues and temples were gone, in their places 
were splendid churches; and over the city gates, on the houses, and above 
the churches, everywhere shone victorious that cross, for whose sake 
they had, as they thought, been persecuted but yesterday. They had 
slept two hundred years in the cave. — Dr. Gerhard Uhlhorn. 

The kingdom is a growth, both in our understanding of it and in its 
realization. Our Lord spoke of it as a leaven, which was gradually to 
leaven the lump. Again, he described it as a seed, which should grow 
up, first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear. 
And he even spoke of our knowledge of it as something to be slowly gained 
under the tuition of the Holy Spirit, whom he would send to guide his 
disciples into the truth. He brought the leaven, he planted the seed, 
he spoke the word; but the evolution and the understanding were com- 
mitted to the ages. — Dr. Borden Parker Bowne. 



182 



CHAPTER X 

CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 

The Christian Church is not to be judged narrowly. 
Historically, as measured both by its vitality and fruit- 
fulness, it is the greatest institution known to man. 
Originating in the Orient, it is substantially Western 
in its development. Indeed, it may be measuredly 
said, it is largely the creator of the world's most enlight- 
ened and advanced civilizations. It is older by cen- 
turies than any existing government in the Western 
world. Born in a pagan environment, and under hostile 
skies, born under conditions which, humanly considered, 
would seem to preclude the possibility of its continued 
life, it has survived. When Christ was born Rome 
was called the ' 'Eternal." Her scepter swayed the 
world from the forests of Lebanon to the Isles of Briton. 
But the dust of more than a millennium of years has 
gathered upon the ruins of Rome, and in all Europe 
there is hardly a vestige of a civilization that was in 
existence when Christ came. 

The Christian Church has not only survived, but in 
one form or another it sways the life and thought of 
all Europe as no other force. America was unknown 
to the world until fifteen centuries after the birth of 
Christ. To-day America, North and South, is the 
seat of great empires, of world-civilizations; but the 
most pervasive and dominant institution in all its vast 

183 



1 84 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

territory, and among its one hundred and fifty million 
of people, is, in one form or another, the Christian Church. 
The Church is not only the oldest institution in both 
Europe and America, but in empire and republic alike 
it is the most dominating force in all Western civilization. 

That an institution originating in apparent weakness, 
initially commanding but a few uninfluential supporters, 
beginning its mission in a remote and despised province 
of civilization, and a little later drawing to itself the 
sporadic and organized opposition of the most powerful 
and militant paganism of the world — that such an in- 
stitution should survive at all might well be a matter 
of much inquiry, and not a little wonder. The great 
historian of the Decline and Fall has devoted two chap- 
ters of his monumental work to this very question. 
These chapters have come to be considered among the 
weakest, the most sophistical, and the least creditable 
in a work which, on the whole, is justly accredited as 
one of the supreme products of literature. To-day 
the Christian Church represents the greatest census of 
history. Its enrollment includes more than five hundred 
and seventy million of the human race. The Church, 
considered alone in the light of its origin, its persistence, 
and its growth, is a most remarkable phenomenon. 

But there are many features that add to the wonder 
of the persistence and flourishing life of the Church. 
Its pristine ideals have been obscured by the interblending 
of pagan corruptions, its lofty doctrines have been 
perverted by false interpretations, its membership has 
been invaded, and in some sections and times, inundated 
and overwhelmed by unregenerate hordes. Its unity 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 185 

has been seemingly hopelessly rent asunder by the 
cleavage of doctrinal controversies. From its central 
life there have been thrown off innumerable and rival 
sects. History has witnessed no more virulent hatreds, 
no more violent conflicts, than have been awakened in 
the Church when sect has warred against sect. No 
wars have been more stubborn or cruel than the wars 
of religion. The Church, while always challenging to 
itself the antagonisms of the world, has been more 
menaced by internal dissensions, by the evil lives of its 
professed adherents, by the false teachings of its accredited 
leaders, by the priestly prostitution of its high sanctities, 
by the ignorance and superstition which have flourished 
at her own altars, than by all outward foes combined. 
But still, the Church has continued to live and has 
waxed strong. 

From the days of Celsus to the days of Robert 
Ingersoll there has been an unbroken succession of hos- 
tile critics, who have in most spectacular manner an- 
nounced the near and utter destruction of the Church. 
These men have assumed to write the very epitaph of 
Christianity itself. But all of them, like meteors flashing 
in the night, have disappeared, and most of them are 
forgotten. But the Church has moved irresistibly, 
majestically forward, witnessing to the ages that they 
who take up arms against her cannot prosper, and they 
who witness against her are false prophets. 

The secret of the quenchless and abounding vitality 
of the Church is the divine life resident within her. The 
Church on its human side is immeasurably far from 
perfect. In vast majorities it is made up of men, women, 



186 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

and children, greatly wanting in knowledge, with im- 
perfect ideals, multitudes of them quite primally human, 
their native thought little cultivated, their natural 
impulses little restrained — and yet in them all there is 
a profound consciousness of need, need social, moral, 
spiritual, to which the Church has ministered and does 
minister as not all other agencies. 

In the course of its history the Church as a whole 
has been touched and influenced by many types of 
philosophy, types most of which are now obsolete. But 
in all its history the Church has clung to, and believed 
in, Jesus Christ as its Sovereign, its supreme Teacher, 
its Exemplar, its inspiring and sustaining Life. And 
Jesus Christ as its Sovereign, its inspiring and vital 
strength, has proven more powerful for the Church 
than all combinations of evil against it; has preserved 
the Church in irresistible vitality in spite of all the 
ignorance, superstition, weakness, and dissensions which 
have inhered in its membership. Of all human beliefs 
none have been more widespread or unyielding than 
the belief on the part of the Christian world that Jesus 
Christ is a living and divine Saviour of those who trust 
in him. 

A belief well-nigh as universal as the Church itself 
is that Christ holds a living fellowship with men who 
seek to obey him, and that he attests the reproduction 
of himself in the lives of those who love him. The 
invincible thing which keeps the Church always and 
mightily alive is the abiding conviction that Christ 
dwells experimentally in the hearts of his people. 

While outwardly nothing might seem more fixed and 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 187 

incurable than the cleavage between the Roman and 
the Protestant Churches, yet in their mutual relation 
to Jesus Christ there is revealed a real unity that is 
far deeper and more vital than any divisions which 
separate them. The testimony of Catholic and Protes- 
tant saints alike as to their fellowship with Jesus is just 
the same. Their testimony is keyed to the same note 
of experience; their songs of Christian gratitude are 
interchangeable, and they blend in perfect harmony. 

The Church in this respect cannot be placed on a 
parity with any national life, nor with any philosophy 
or system of law or culture. The Church as represented 
by the body of believers is distinctively insouled and 
vitalized by an indwelling divinity. This is the real 
reason why it triumphantly survives tests and ordeals 
before which any merely human institution would go 
down in collapse. 

Any attempt to account for the vitality of the Church 
would be inadequate which did not reckon with certain 
great facts and doctrines which it has been a distinctive 
function of the Church to emphasize. The Church 
as a whole has never uttered itself equivocally as to the 
character of sin. Sin is a violation of moral law, a 
departure from rectitude, a thing in essential antagonism 
to righteousness, a crime against the holiness and love 
of God. It is something so grave in itself as to jeopardize 
the soul's relation to God, something the consequences 
of which its victim cannot escape without the inter- 
vention of divine love and power. This teaching, be- 
hind which the Church has stood with great unanimity, 
a teaching which has had its largest confirmation in 



188 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

the universal moral sense of mankind, has been no small 
factor in its world-wide and age-long influence. 

The Church has persistently and universally taught 
the priceless value of the human soul. This teaching 
is central to the very logic of the Christian faith. God 
is the Father of the human spirit. It must then follow, 
even though it be in some marvelous and indefinable 
sense, that man as God's offspring is also potentially 
divine. There can be no sense in which man is God's 
son which does not call for an exalted view of human 
nature. Man, as we often see him, may seem depraved, 
perverted, hopeless. But if there is any recuperative 
potency in the individual, if God has any interest in 
his fallen child, if his love will prompt to any ingenuity 
of effort to lift up and transform those whom ignorance 
and sin have cast down, then, we can set no bounds 
to the glorious possibilities of any soul however appar- 
ently worthless. Coupled with the potential worth of 
every human soul is the Christian conception of im- 
mortality. Given this conception, and God himself 
is the only conceivable limit of the soul's possibilities 
of growth. To be a son of God, and to be a deathless 
heir of eternity, suggest a destiny in comparison with 
which all earthly values shrink into insignificance. Yet 
the Church throughout its history has steadily and 
clearly announced this great teaching. It is a teaching 
worthy to challenge the supreme attention of mankind. 

The Church has always stood as the mouthpiece of 
God's revelation to the world. It has been the supreme 
and unsubstituted expounder of God's will concerning 
man, the interpreter of man's relations and possibilities 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 189 

in God's plans. This is a sublime function which in 
all history has never been so undertaken by any agency 
as by the Church. It is a function so stupendous, so 
large in assumption, as, without direct ordination from 
heaven, to be regarded a thing of infinite impertinence, 
an infamous audacity. 

It is due to emphasize the fact that in the discharge 
of this function the Church has always claimed the 
presence in its own life of a divine inspiration and guid- 
ance. But in discharge of this supreme mission it has 
never faltered, its spirit has never been touched with 
a sense of despair. Sublimely conscious of its heaven- 
given credentials, it has gone steadily forward preaching 
the gospel of its Founder to all men, urging upon all 
alike the uncompromising claims of God's will, always 
buoyant in the confidence that in its message is the 
charter of a divine redemption for all mankind. Thus 
it is easy to see that in the very foundations of 
the Church itself there are some distinctive factors adapted 
to give it a place of tremendous and transcendent in- 
fluence in the world of human thought. 

No review of the Church, however brief, should fail 
to note its transforming influence upon the institutions 
of society. We have noted the alienation toward the 
Church which unfortunately characterizes too widely 
the present-day labor world. But labor in all its his- 
tory has never had a better friend than the Church 
of Christ. When Christianity took its origin the laboring 
man was among the most despised and friendless of men. 
This was the spirit of the pagan world. Toil in any 
form was a work for slaves. Cicero said: "All who live 



iqo CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

by mercenary labor do a degrading business. No noble 
sentiment can come from a workshop." Seneca, Rome's 
greatest philosopher, said: "The invention of the arts 
belongs to the vilest slaves. Wisdom dwells in loftier 
regions; she soils not her hands with labor." 

In a world in which the toiler was universally despised, 
Christ began his work by surrounding himself with 
men of humble callings. Paul, greatest of the apostles, 
supported himself by the labor of his hands. From 
the first, Christianity put a dignity upon labor. It 
even received the slave into its fellowship and treated 
him as a brother beloved. Clement, in characterizing 
the Christian, said: "Among us, some are fishers, others 
artisans, others husbandmen. We are never idle." In 
the early Church not the rights of labor, but the duty 
of labor was emphasized. And the new moral citizen- 
ship which Christianity thus brought to the laborer, 
the new ideals and incitements which thus came to 
his life, resulted in a general prosperity among Chris- 
tians which early drew to itself the attention of the 
Roman world. Christianity began and continued its 
mission by enfranchising the laboring classes and giving 
them all the privileges of its citizenship. 

The Church, in its true spirit, has always been the 
open friend of poor and toiling men. One of the 
sublimest triumphs of its spirit and teaching is the 
obliteration of human slavery from all Christian civiliza- 
tions. And if it be really true to-day that there is any 
widespread alienation of labor from the Christian Church, 
this in itself should awaken on the part of the Church 
anxious inquiry as concerning its own spirit. Nothing 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 191 

can be truer than that the great Founder and Exemplar 
of the Church was in the closest sympathy with, and was 
most conspicuously the friend of, those who labor and 
are heavy-laden. 

The ennobling influence of Christianity upon the 
character and status of woman is a theme which has 
been much but most worthily dwelt upon. In antiquity, 
especially in the Greek and Roman worlds, woman was 
universally treated as man's inferior. The very status 
of inferiority thus assigned to her made impossible, 
even in these great and cultured civilizations, the creation 
of an ideal moral society or the most perfect standard 
of family life. 

It is only with difficulty that we can reproduce to 
our thought the nameless immorality prevalent in the 
Roman empire at the time of and after the advent of 
Christ. Woman, as measured by our present Christian 
ideals, was well-nigh universally degraded. She was 
practically the vassal of man, the instrument of his 
caprice, the slave of his pleasure. One of the first in- 
fluences of Christianity was to give an exalted place 
to womanhood. The divine Saviour of men was born 
of a woman. A pure and noble womanhood is beau- 
tifully exemplified in some of Christ's personal friend- 
ships as pictured in the Gospels. From the very begin- 
ning woman was treated as man's peer in the citizenship 
of the Kingdom. In Christ there was neither Jew nor 
Greek, bond nor free, male nor female. Men and women 
are ' 'heirs together of the grace of life." Christ put 
the divine seal upon the sacredness of the family life 
by enjoining a lifelong marriage of one man with one 



i 9 2 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

woman. Only in a relation thus established and limited 
could there be guaranteed to children born into the 
home the rights of parental care, nurture, and training 
essential to their future. From its earliest organization 
the Church not only insisted upon the equality of woman, 
but it put around her life in all relations the highest 
sanctities of personal purity and virtue. 

Wherever the Church has carried a dominant influence 
there womanhood has been honored, the definition of 
her rights has been widened, and the sphere of her in- 
fluence and privilege in the family, in the social and 
educational world has been enlarged. The logic of 
this position of the Church in relation to woman has 
issued in the widest results. If woman is to be the 
peer and companion of man, then she should be the 
full sharer with him in the social, educational, moral, 
and spiritual opportunities of life. If she is to bear, 
as the Christian home calls for, a chief task in the mental, 
moral, and spiritual nurture of childhood, then she is 
entitled for her high function as mother and teacher 
to all the personal culture which the best conditions 
can furnish. These are the premises from which have 
arisen the high place accorded to woman in the activ- 
ities of the Church itself, the costly provision for her 
education in common with her brothers at public expense, 
her coeducational status in the great universities, and 
the splendid list of colleges devoted exclusively to fe- 
male education. 

Civilization, just in the measure in which its vision 
becomes Christian, recognizes increasingly both the fit- 
ness and the justice of endowing woman, ordained to 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 193 

be the companion and peer of man, with every social, 
educational, and moral privilege which by right should 
be conferred upon her brothers. So true is all this 
that there is not a man who owes a debt to a cultured, 
Christian mother, there is not a woman who holds a 
high place of esteem in the social world, not one who 
because of the wealth of her mental attainments, or 
the beauty of her spiritual character, commands unusual 
influence, who is not placed under the bonds of grat- 
itude for an inheritance received from the Christian 
Church. 

The ameliorations which the Church has wrought in 
social conditions, the inspirations which it has furnished 
to human thought, form a long list of benefactions upon 
which I cannot here enlarge. Wealth, its dispositions, 
its uses, presents one of the greatest and most vexing 
questions to present-day thought. In the ancient world 
wealth was held by its possessor without sense of moral 
responsibility for its use. The spirit of paganism per- 
mitted a man to feel free in its selfish use. Christianity 
has always taught that wealth is a moral trust, that 
its holder is a steward held strictly responsible for the 
use he makes of even his money. The influence of 
this teaching may be somewhat measured by the costly 
charities, by hospitals, by homes for the aged and unfor- 
tunate, by asylums for the feeble-minded, by retreats 
for the blind, by orphanages, and by kindred benefac- 
tions, which stand numerously all along the pathway 
of Christian history. I shall have occasion elsewhere 
to note the marvelous spirit of benevolence which char- 
acterizes the modern world. Who is able intelligently 



194 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

to deny that the teaching of the Christian Church is, 
and has been, more than any other cause the source of 
all this munificence? 

The Church has inspired radical reforms against 
the barbarism of prison management; has, by its hu- 
mane teaching and Red Cross nurses, mitigated the 
atrocities of war and the horrors of the battlefield; has 
done much to humanize the criminal codes, and to 
lessen the lists of inhuman punishments for minor mis- 
demeanors. It has taken a long time for the Christian 
spirit to eliminate the primitive barbarisms which have 
persisted even into Christian civilizations. As late as 
the beginning of the nineteenth century there were 
more than two hundred offenses on the statute books 
of England punishable by death. Men and women 
were hanged for sheep-stealing, for forgery, for passing 
spurious coin. Yet at the same time men might buy 
and sell slaves and flog them to death without even 
breaking the law. 

Benjamin Kidd luminously and convincingly shows 
us that the steady trend of legislation of the entire Western 
civilizations for the last century has been in the direc- 
tion of humane ameliorations, of enlarged recognition 
of human rights, and for the betterment of general 
social and moral conditions. And no one than he will 
be more prompt to credit the influence of Christian 
teaching as an underlying cause of this humane trend 
in Western legislation. 

In touching upon these familiar claims on behalf 
of the Christian Church as having created many of 
the most valuable features of our modern civilization, 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 195 

I am not unaware of the claim made by some that if 
Christianity had not existed, civilization would still 
have developed much of the same valuable qualities 
as now. There are those who go so far as to declare 
that Christianity has been a detriment rather than a 
benefit to the world's advancement. 

Such statements are far more easily made than proven. 
There is hardly a land to-day in which there has not 
entered some measure of Christian enlightenment. But 
one thing is certain, the more deeply we bury ourselves 
in climes and atmospheres purely heathen, the more 
conspicuously absent are the better qualities character- 
istic of Christian civilization. Science, education, and 
the sanitary city do not flourish in heathendom. On 
the other hand, degraded womanhood, neglected child- 
hood, despotic castes, abject slavery, gross superstitions, 
ignorance, poverty, and despair all combine to put a 
pall of habitual hopelessness upon the vision of heathen 
civilizations. In Christian communities there may be 
individuals just as superstitious, just as wicked and 
depraved, as any to be found in heathendom. But 
the lives of such in Christian communities always ap- 
pear in marked contrast to lives which Christianity 
has made beautiful. No so in heathendom. In the 
heathen world the common vision is monotonously 
darkened. There is in all the great human mass little 
to inspire hope, gladness, purity, or heroism. 

A pertinent question would seem to be, If a perfect 
civilization can be developed in the absence of Chris- 
tianity, why do not some fine specimens of such a civiliza- 
tion appear at the centers of the world's heathenism? 



i 9 6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

If it should be assumed that a high intellectual culture 
is a sufficient source of a superior civilization, then 
no better examples could be asked than are furnished 
in Greece and Rome. Grecian thought was in itself 
the most brilliant, Grecian art the most perfect, which 
the ages have furnished. But the moral perfections 
of Greece in its best age will bear no comparison to 
the better type of the Christian community. In Rome 
law, philosophy, oratory, literature, and art flourished 
in a phenomenal degree. But when Rome clothed 
herself in purple, and was the most lavish patron of 
art, her morals were namelessly corrupt, her faith most 
darkened, her ideals most depraved, the common lot 
most largely one of hopelessness and despair. 

Religiously, the most classic paganisms of the world 
have proven the most despairing failures. At the height 
of Roman culture, Seneca said, "The aim of all phil- 
osophy is to despise life." Suicide was the last con- 
solation of his philosophy. Paganism at its best has 
never been able to satisfy the deeper spiritual instincts 
of the human soul, the longing of the soul for God. The 
highest satisfactions that can come to the life of man 
have come most certainly, most fully, most abidingly, 
in the faith of Jesus Christ. It is false to history to 
declare that there can be a perfect civilization without 
Christianity. 

We have frankly admitted the weaknesses and lim- 
itations which have characterized the life of the historic 
Church. But the man, with all history as his teacher, 
in search for a new religion, has sought in vain for any 
improvement upon that Christianity which has been 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 197 

taught by the Church. And those who now seek for 
institutions whose teachings furnish better ideals of 
character, or higher hopes for life, whose fellowships 
are more lofty, more pure, or more helpful than those 
furnished by the Christian Church, will continue to 
search in vain. Such institutions do not exist. It is 
in the irreversible logic of Christianity that such institu- 
tions will never appear. 

In sober and measured utterance it may be declared 
that the Christian Church has been the inspirer and 
creator of the finest educational ideals, the most humane 
movements and institutions, the most advanced ethical 
legislation, which are the assured possessions of modern 
civilization. All this may be said without the slightest 
detraction from the great and continuous contributions 
of Roman and Greek literature and art, or from the 
splendid deposit of Arabic science, to the enrichment 
of civilization. It would be both ungainful and fatuous 
to deny that civilization is the resultant of many forces. 
But in the most careful classification of contributing 
factors, it can hardly fail to appear that the best civiliza- 
tion which we know is more largely the product of Chris- 
tian ideals than of any other creative forces. 

It is to be admitted that the Church, while largely 
the creator of, has ceased to be at first hand the director 
of, many of the most valuable movements of the modern 
world. She has so far imbued the state and private 
organizations with her benevolent and humane ideals, 
that these have taken up and multiplied her mission 
to humanity. In the spheres of education, of humane 
charities, in legislation, and in innumerable ways, help- 



108 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

ful ideals which first found embodiment in church life 
are now greatly amplified and reenforced by agencies 
outside of the organized Church. All these agencies, 
however fruitful their usefulness, may look back to the 
Church as their mother. The most beneficent institu- 
tions of our times are nearly all of them children of 
the Church, and together with her, are among the pro- 
motive forces of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. 1 Indeed, 
the influences of Christianity have so permeated the 
intellectual and social atmospheres of the world, have 
so touched and shaped the processes of human thought 
and conduct, as to make it utterly impossible to assess 
its values to the present life of the world. As in a great 
and costly fabric, the golden threads of Christianity are 
richly interwoven into all the structure of modern 
civilization. And, so far from being a lessening force, 
the spirit of Christianity, like a leaven, is more and 
more working itself into and through the great body 
of world-thought. 

Making all due allowance, then, for the fact that 
the Church, as the ecclesiastical investiture of Chris- 
tianity, has been characterized by grievous faults, incon- 
sistencies, and weaknesses; that in these very times 
it is failing sadly to show itself the fit and adequate 
vehicle for giving expression to the mission of Chris- 
tianity to the world, yet I can have no doubt that the 
Church will remain indefinitely the foremost agency 
of inspiration, instruction, and propagation in the up- 
building of Christ's kingdom among men. 

1 In this chapter I have in a few instances used the word "Church" as practically synon- 
ymous with the "Kingdom," because when so used the Church has stood as the chief 
expression of Kingdom development. 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 199 

Life creates its own organisms, its own agencies of 
propagation. Christianity is life supreme. It will always 
voice itself more potently through the Church than 
by any other agency. Whatever the tendency of his- 
torical ecclesiasticism to harden itself into fixed forms, 
whatever the tendency of its doctrines to dogmatic 
fossilization, the inherent creative life of the Spirit will 
nevertheless so shape Christian thinking and method 
as to produce a type of church life flexible, adaptive, 
and effectively responsive to the Spirit's processes in 
the redemption of the world. 

But, whatever our confidence in the stability and 
perpetuity of the Church, it would be in the highest 
degree fatuous not to take into most serious reckoning 
the exceptionally critical and prodigiously difficult situa- 
tion which confronts the mission of the present-day 
Church. This situation is so real, so obvious, as to 
seem to some of its observers tantamount to nothing 
less than an arrest of Christianity itself. To this view 
no hospitality is to be given. But nevertheless the 
Church has come to face one of the gravest critical 
periods in its history. Its life-and-death conflict with 
early Roman persecutions did not furnish a severer 
test of its vitality and capacity than that which now 
confronts its life. 

If the Church is to prove itself equal to Christianizing 
the world, it will need to adapt itself as never before 
to what may be characterized as largely new and uni- 
versal age-conditions. 

1. Providence, in a marvelous way, has signalized 
this very day as one of the world-wide preparation 



2oo CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

for the advent of the gospel to all nations. Is the Church, 
in equipment, in purpose, in zeal, ready to enter upon 
the supreme program which God is now thrusting upon 
its vision? 1 

2. The conditions of the industrial and social world 
force upon the Church to-day for its solution some of 
the most fateful and difficult problems which have ever 
arisen in Christian history. The really alarming elements 
in the situation are, as I must believe, only beginning 
to take their rightful place in the consideration of Chris- 
tian thought. There are, for instance, in Christendom 
to-day three quite well-defined zones of social life. The 
distinctive term which may be applied to one is "cap- 
italism." As early as 1890 Mr. Charles B. Spahr, by 
careful processes, reached the conclusion that one per 
cent of the families of the United States control more 
than one half of the aggregate wealth of the country. 
If this estimate was correct then, it is probably not 
less true to-day. The same authority asserts that 
seven eighths of the families control only one eighth 
of the national wealth. These figures, however, do not 
best represent the real social stratification of our present- 
day life. Between the two extremes of capitalism and 
poverty, there is a wide middle zone. The people in 
this zone represent conditions of average comfort. Many 
of them own their homes. They command a fair living 
income. They provide their children with the con- 
ditions of a liberal education. This zone embraces 
nearly all the industrious and prosperous merchants, 
tradesmen, farmers, and professional classes. Its people 

1 1 reserve another chapter for the discussion of this question. 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 201 

largely represent intelligence, virtue, and wholesome 
qualities of character. In this class the Church has its 
greatest numerical and moral strength. This class as 
such has never broken with the Church. Its people 
are those upon whom the Church may most rely, and 
from which it may expect most for the reenforcement 
of its work. This class, on the whole, represents the 
best product of our civilization. 

Concerning the great capitalist, little need here be 
said except that he commands an inordinate fortune 
and wields a very great, and quite possibly dangerous, 
power. Measured from any Christian standpoint, it is 
a grave thing for a man to be a multimillionaire. But 
nevertheless the Church has an ethical message for 
this capitalist which without fear or favor it should 
urge upon him. It is not enough that he is benevolently 
disposed, that he is willing to do good with his surplus 
income. The question is, what is the real attitude of 
his heart toward God, toward humanity, toward his 
own paramount spiritual interests? How is he really 
discharging his own moral stewardship? One may be 
far removed from any grievance toward capital, he may 
recognize clearly both the legitimacy and necessity of 
capital for the larger interests of human society. But 
may there not still be room for the judgment that there 
is something unideal, something Christianly abnormal, 
in the overgrown private fortune? It is not enough 
that the owner ranks princely in philanthropy, that 
he endows universities, hospitals, benevolent foundations 
in a way that is at once most signal and most useful. 
There is an irreversible moral judgment abroad which 



202 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

says that, even so, he is not justly balancing his books 
with the world. He may do all this, and yet experience 
nothing of the sacrifice of the cross. And, after all, back 
of all the processes by which his fortune is secured, back 
of all legal titles of ownership, there is, as weighed in 
the sensitive scale of the common judgment, a serious 
question as to the moral fitness of any one man monop- 
olizing wealth which runs inordinately beyond his per- 
sonal needs. 

Certainly, no man ever acquires such wealth by his 
own unaided exertion. He may have been able to sub- 
sidize many forces, but among these forces there was 
a productive power meriting little, if any, less recog- 
nition than his own. To build a given fortune requires 
the services of a thousand men. One man has the 
power to keep in his own hands the great bulk of the 
production, and we call him rich. Nine hundred and 
ninety-nine other men have received no equitable di- 
vision of the product, and the margin between them, 
their families, and poverty is always so narrow as to 
be a source of dread. The ethical teachings of the Old 
Testament are not far from making it clear that the 
offerings of one whose fortune has been gained at such 
expense are a mockery at the Lord's altars. Such 
a man is at least in the category of those of whom Christ 
said, "It is not easy for such to enter into the kingdom 
of heaven." There can be no doubt, I think, that in 
the ideal Christian state inordinate private fortunes 
will have no place. They cannot coexist with an ideal 
and fully developed Christian conscience. And so, one 
of the supreme problems of Christianity to-day is to 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 203 

Christianize capitalism, is, in the spirit of the Hebrew 
prophets, to deal honestly, courageously, with the rich 
until they shall be made to feel that the one purpose 
to which they should dedicate their wealth is the build- 
ing up of God's kingdom in the earth. 

The tragic question of all, however, relates to the 
decapitalized classes. The three classes which I have 
named are socially quite apart from each other. But 
the class at present most hopelessly divorced from the 
Church is that of the wage-earning laborer. This sit- 
uation, viewed from the standpoint of Christ's own 
example and teaching, is in all respects abnormal and 
unfortunate. If in the gospel of Jesus Christ there is 
anything which ministers to human needs, that brings 
strength to weakness, comfort to the sorrowing, hope 
to the buffeted, then, of all classes, the poor have con- 
stant need of such a ministry. But for reasons which 
need not here be specialized there probably never was 
a time when the laboring and the heavy-laden, living 
at the very doors of the Church, were more separated 
from it than now. 

There never was a time when such separation would 
be so significant as now. The laboring world is organ- 
ized. It is learning to know the power, without alto- 
gether appreciating the necessary restraints, of organ- 
ization. It is militant in its spirit. It is discontented. 
It cherishes the belief that it is being defrauded from 
its fair share of the benefits of its own industry. It 
is lending itself bitterly to the view that capitalism is 
largely robbery. It is menacing and defiant. It pro- 
poses incessant warfare until what it conceives as its 



2o 4 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

own rights shall be conceded. It is under a cult especially 
its own. It is reading newspapers, magazines, and 
books created and published from its own ranks. 

The misfortune in this relation is that the literature 
on which it feeds and fortifies itself takes little account 
of spiritual ideals or of man's spiritual needs. Labor 
is systematically being educated away from the spiritual 
ideals of the Church. It is traducing itself into the 
belief that it has no need for the Church. Its gospel 
is materialistic, its hopes are of this world. Its vision 
is confined to an earthly paradise. It is hardly possible 
to exaggerate the gravity of the situation. Whole 
populous provinces of our civilization are migrating 
into a gross materialism and are educating their children 
away from Christian ideals. The chasm which is thus 
being created between the Church and the laboring 
world is one which is hardly yet begun to be measured, 
but it is implicit with consequences of immeasurable 
disaster both to the Church and to the future moral 
status of labor. 

The Church of the twentieth century will make no 
signal advance until it bridges this chasm and recaptures 
these alienated territories. In order to do this it will 
have to be itself fully awakened to the magnitude and 
peril of the situation. It will need to have a full appre- 
ciation and sympathetic understanding of all the problems 
and difficulties involved. It will need to discover for 
itself new and large adaptations for one of the supreme 
tasks of Christian history. It will need to enter upon 
this work from the very focus of highest spiritual inspira- 
tions — inspirations which will beget at its heart high 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 205 

hopes, a Christlike love of man, a quenchless zeal. Will 
the Church adapt itself for this supreme work? Will 
it gird and inspire itself for this superlative requirement ? 
I believe it will. 

3. The Church of the twentieth century must acquire 
far more perfectly than now the secret and power of a 
working unity. Happily, this is one of the great con- 
ceptions, which is working itself mightily into the con- 
victions of the present-day Church. Christians of the 
different denominations are awaking to the vision of 
the great and common tasks of Christianity. They 
are perceiving more than ever that the things which 
have separated them are not vital, and that the truths 
in which they agree are really the great truths of the 
Christian faith. And, more than ever, our common 
Christianity is coming to be inspired and unified in the 
overwhelming conception of what it means to Chris- 
tianize the world. To say nothing for the moment of 
Christianizing the entire human race — the ultimate 
achievement for which the Church exists — to enter the 
doors of opportunity and necessity now wide open for 
Christian advancement would require the united and 
harmonized effort of the entire Christian Church. 

I think of a mission field like that now existing in the 
Greater New York city. Let us confine our thought 
to the east side of Manhattan Island, though this is 
only typical of many other sections of the city which 
might almost equally serve the purpose. This whole 
section is now congested with populations which have 
come from the ends of the earth. It is a section which 
was once well colonized with Christian churches. But 



2o6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

with the incoming of foreign populations these churches 
have, one after another, retreated, until to-day the 
great thronging "East Side" is pretty much given over 
to alien peoples. But this field is one of the most im- 
portant, strategic, and difficult for Christian missionary 
work existing on the face of the earth. 

The question seems well asked, "If we cannot success- 
fully carry out a Christian missionary scheme in our 
own country, why should we be so careful to establish 
missions in pagan lands?" I would not lessen by a 
feather's weight our interests in foreign missions. Those 
interests need to be mightily reenforced. But I reassert 
the conviction that New York city presents intrinsically 
the most strategic and important mission field of the 
world. If the Church could establish great and effective 
evangelistic centers on the east side of New York, then, 
from this very ground would be raised up the most 
efficient foreign missionary agencies which the Church 
has yet known. But this is the field in which the Prot- 
estant denominations, working single-handed, have lost 
out. I do not underestimate — I am far from a desire 
so to do — the useful work now being done on this "East 
Side" by various single organizations. But measured 
by the kind of judgment which is required for success- 
ful business, it might deliberately be said that all that 
is now attempted is but a mere byplay conducted on the 
shores of an infinite need. All that is now being accom- 
plished hardly touches the edges of an indescribable 
mass of unchristianized populations. 

To recover this ground, and to Christianize the peoples, 
will require such a massing of Christian strength and 



CHRISTIANITY'S LEAVENING LIFE 207 

movement as has never been known in history. It is 
a work for which no single denomination, nor all denom- 
inations together working separately, is equal. Success, 
of the kind needed and merited in this field, would re- 
quire vast sums of consecrated wealth, great unity and 
harmony of counsel, apostolic leadership, workers in 
sufficient number, who, in the spirit of their Master, 
would invade the last retreats in search of men apparently 
lost and hopeless. 

I have used the city to illustrate the need of federated 
Christian action. There are innumerable fields which 
call for this attitude on the part of the churches. Happily 
beyond expression, the Christian atmosphere is full 
of prophecy. The birth-throes of mighty moral move- 
ments are in the age. The Church will emerge to the 
needs of the day. Its inspired ingenuity will not only 
make it adaptive, but will arm it with adequate resources 
for the fulfillment of its divine mission. 

Christianity is a life, an inspiring divine force. There 
may be periods in its history when this life seems quies- 
cent, inactive; but as the gathering of pent-up waters, 
it will at some time break forth and assert its own resist- 
less might. Each new age takes on environment quite 
distinctly its own. In this environment new problems, 
new needs, develop. These problems and needs summon 
knowledge to the task of new solutions, to the invention 
of distinctive and adaptive methods of treatment. Noth- 
ing is more prophetically certain than that the Divine 
Spirit will quicken the vision of the Church, inspire 
it with purpose, and gird it with a strength equal to its 
momentous and difficult tasks. To the supreme needs 



2o8 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

of the world and to all divine requirements the Church 
of the future will surely respond. Rejecting useless 
methods of thought, and casting off worn-out traditions, 
it will gird itself with knowledge as with light, and, 
new-panoplied in the life of the Spirit, it will go forth 
to the greatest achievements of its history. 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 



209 



And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority- 
hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and 
make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe 
all things whatsoever I commanded you: And lo, I am with you always, 
even unto the end of the world. — Matthew 28. 18-20. 

The record of the work done by the first missionaries in India reads 
like an Eastern romance. They created a prose literature for Bengal; 
they established the modern method of popular education; they founded 
the present Protestant Indian Church; they gave the first impulse to 
the native press; they set up the first steam engine in India; with its 
help they introduced the modern manufacture of paper on a large scale; 
in ten years they translated and printed the Bible, or parts thereof, in 
thirty-one languages. The main part of their funds they earned by 
their hands and heads. They built a college which still ranks among 
the most splendid educational edifices in India. — Sir William Hunter. 

I believe the advancement of civilization, the extension of commerce, 
the increase of knowledge in arts, science, and literature, the promotion 
of civil and religious liberty, the development of countries rich in undis- 
covered mineral and vegetable wealth are all intimately identified with 
and, to a much larger extent than most people are aware of, dependent 
upon the work of the missionaries; and I hold that the missionary has 
done more to civilize and to benefit the heathen world than any or all 
other agencies ever employed. — Alexander McArthur, M.P. 

They are revolutionizing society. They are waking ancient peoples 
from the graves of the past. They are kindling a new passion for free- 
dom. They are breaking the bonds of ancient superstitions and con- 
servative traditions. They are breathing new life into multiplied millions 
of the human families. If there be a rebirth in China — and the pangs 
of new life are being felt in India, and the dark places of Africa are being 
wrested from the dominion of cruelty and lust — if, in a word, the thralldom 
of ignorance and wrong is being overturned in half the world, the com- 
manding figure behind the whole movement that is doing these things 
is the humble missionary. — The Rev. W. F. Oldham. 



210 



CHAPTER XI 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 

In addressing the National Convention of twenty- 
five hundred Methodist men at Indianapolis, Dr. Robert 
E. Speer predicted that, when the future student of his- 
tory shall look back upon our times to inquire as to 
what has really been the greatest movement of history, 
"he will select as the deepest and most characteristic 
movement of this time Christianity's readjustment of 
its mission and the reassertion by Christian men of 
their obligation to carry the sovereignty of the gospel 
over all the world and into all the life of men." 

Great moral movements, like the seas, mingle into 
each other. But, if we could clearly differentiate the 
Christian missionary movement of this age from all 
other movements, we would be forced to conclude that 
this movement, measured by its ideals, its scope, its 
achievements, its effect direct and collateral upon civ- 
ilization, its ever-enlarging plans and prophetic hopes, 
is the most sublime and morally fruitful movement in 
the present-day history of the world. Upon no feature 
of the Church did its divine Founder lay more stress 
than upon its missionary character. His last and de- 
cisive message to the Church bade it go into all the 
world and disciple all the nations. 

The relentless edict of persecution forced the primitive 
Church early into missionary activities. Persecution 

211 



212 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

hunted and scattered the early disciples into all the 
provinces of the Mediterranean. But in whatever 
territories these pursued disciples took refuge, they 
carried the ardent testimony of their Master's gospel. 
Christianity, by its own propulsions, spread rapidly 
from the shores of the Mediterranean, not only to north- 
ern Africa, but throughout the territories of Europe. 
It accompanied the earliest migrations to America, and 
established itself as the dominant religious faith of 
the New World. 

The term " Christendom" has long stood as the synonym 
of a large group of nations which together compose the 
world's most advanced and powerful civilizations. But 
in the great body of Christendom the distinctive con- 
ception of missions as now construed, like many other 
of the implicit and vital teachings of Christ, has come 
to late expression. In the days of his flesh, Christ's 
patience was evidently greatly tried by the lack of 
spiritual discernment so manifest in his disciples. Few 
facts can more greatly attest the blindness of the Church 
through long ages than its lack of vision of, its indiffer- 
ence to, its skepticism concerning, its duty to constitute 
itself a missionary evangel to all the world. 

Practically, while there are a few organizations com- 
paratively old, the foreign missionary conception is 
quite modern. While on the Continent and in England 
a few of the foreign boards were established in the later 
years of the eighteenth century, most of the effective 
organizations of to-day are less than a century old. 
The American Board was formed in 1810, the Baptist 
Board in 18 14, the Methodist Episcopal Missionary 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 213 

Society in 18 19, the Protestant Episcopal Missionary- 
Society in 1820, the United Presbyterian Board Mission- 
ary Society in 1859. 

The awakening of conviction from which has resulted 
the foreign missionary movement of Protestant Chris- 
tianity was effected in the face of great indifference, 
even of opposition. When, only a little more than a 
hundred years ago, William Carey arose in a Baptist 
Assembly to inquire if Christ's command to his apostles 
to go "into all the world and preach the gospel" did 
not apply to the present time, the president curtly 
replied: "Sit down, young man. When it pleases God 
to convert the heathen, he will do it without your help." 1 

The attitude of the great "Honorable East India 
Company," practically wielding England's control of 
the Indian continent, is well known. When it was 
proposed to send missionaries to the East, this company 
officially made a rejoinder to the effect that "the sending 
out of missionaries into our Eastern possessions would 
be the maddest, most extravagant, most costly, most 
indefensible project which has ever been suggested by 
a moon-struck fanatic. Such a scheme is pernicious, 
imprudent, useless, harmful, dangerous, profitless, fan- 
tastic. It strikes against all reason and sound policy, 
it brings the peace and safety of our possessions into 
peril." It was not until 18 13 that the English Parliament 
allowed missionaries to go to India. 

When the Church Missionary Society of London was 
organized there was not to be found a single English 

1 For a convenient grouping of several of the historical incidents related in this chapter. 
I am indebted to an informing and brilliant article from the pen of Carl Crow, as published 
in The World's Work, in October, 1013- 



2i 4 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

clergyman who was willing to go upon foreign mission 
work, and for sixteen years this Society did its work 
only through foreign helpers. "In 1796 the General 
Assembly of the Church of Scotland passed a resolution 
that 'to spread abroad the knowledge of the gospel 
among barbarous and heathen nations seems to be 
highly preposterous — while there remains at home a 
single individual without the means of religious knowl- 
edge, to propagate it abroad would be improper and 
absurd/ " 

The American Board of Foreign Missions was organ- 
ized in 181 o, really under the initial leadership of a few 
Andover Seminary students, namely, Samuel Mills, 
Gordon Hall, and James Richmond. But such then 
was the general opposition to the idea of missions that 
these spiritually awakened young men had to counsel 
together in stealth. They met for conversation and 
prayer upon the subject of missions in a lonely glen, 
but were greatly rejoiced to find that their hearts were 
drawn out in harmony upon the same subject. 

No phenomenon in history is more marked, nor prob- 
ably more fraught with significance, than the change 
which in the last century — it might truly be said within 
the last twenty-five years — has come into the thought 
of the Christian Church with reference to missions. 
The missionary enterprise is now a common enthusiasm 
of Protestantism. There are at present nearly fifty 
strongly organized societies or boards, the common 
purpose of which is, under the most efficient auspices at 
command, to establish evangelizing agencies in all heathen 
territory. As a policy both of comity and efficiency, 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 215 

the fields to be occupied are so differentiated that these 
various organizations do not enter the same territory 
as rival forces. A general result is that mission sta- 
tions, like so many beacons of moral and spiritual light 
in the world's dark spaces, are already strategically 
planted here and there widely over pagan lands. Mis- 
sionary forces are increasingly colonizing the heathen 
world. 

Only a century ago the entire gifts of Protestantism 
for foreign missions did not exceed annually $200,000. 
In the last year England, the United States, and Canada 
gave more than $22,000,000; and in the same year the 
combined gifts of the world's Protestantism for this 
cause were not less than $33,000,000. 

In the entire heathen world the number of employed 
missionaries from Christian lands approximates about 
21,500, to which are to be added 105,000 native workers. 
The direct fruitage of missionary efforts in the fields 
occupied is represented by more than 7,000,000 living 
native Christians. These figures are most significant. 
But they represent only the merest fraction of achieve- 
ments wrought. The eloquent words of Dr. W. F. 
Oldham, spoken of Methodist missions at the Indianapolis 
convention, would have truthful application if spoken 
of the entire missionary world. He said: 

This slim handful, met at first by misunderstanding and racial prejudice, 
by open opposition and stony indifference, has kept patiently, steadily 
at work. They have had but a brief half century. During that time, 
working from five thousand to ten thousand miles from home, contending 
with strange languages and stranger customs, debilitated by unfavor- 
able climates, harassed by disease, criticized abroad and till lately often 
sneered at at home, they have overcome initial difficulties, broken through 
the apathy of great masses of ignorance, have withstood the organized 



216 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

opposition of aroused priesthoods and the militant frenzy of persecuting 
fanatics. In the face of mobs and riots, of revolution and wars, and above 
all, in spite of powerfully intrenched religions and hoary superstitions, 
they have inaugurated changes, they have altered civilizations, they 
have witnessed the reformation of peoples and the rebirth of nations; 
they have planted schools and school systems; they have built churches 
and established Christian homes and Christian worship. . . . Behold, 
what hath God wrought! 

The interest in missions shows no decline. It is, 
rather, that of a sustained and growing life. It is a 
movement fresh and vigorous in purpose, such as might 
have sprung from a youthful Christianity, a movement 
having in itself all the energy, hopefulness, and prophecy 
born of youthful enthusiasms. Christian missions are 
really but in their beginning. Their outlook is world- 
wide, their spirit world-conquering. In all their vocabu- 
lary there is no single suggestion of despair. Their 
task is as wide as humanity, but their confidence of 
success is absolute. If the term "enthusiasm" can be 
translated as God inworking in human purposes, then, 
no historic cause than that of Christian missions has 
ever drawn to itself a support more sublime. 

This cause has won for itself the approval of the world's 
most observant and intelligent thinkers. To speak 
slightingly or derisively of Christian missions to-day 
is to mark the person so speaking as both benighted 
and bigoted. A church member who does not believe 
in missions is pathetically out of harmony with the 
most enlightened thought of the age. 

Phillips Brooks, when traveling in India, wrote home: 
"Tell your friends who do not believe in foreign mis- 
sions (and I am sure there are a good many of such) 
that they do not know what they are talking about, 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 217 

and that three weeks' sight of mission work in India 
would convert them wholly." 

Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop, traveler and author, says: 

I am a convert to missions through seeing missions and the need for 
them. Some years ago I took no interest at all in the condition of the 
heathen; I had heard much ridicule cast upon Christian missions, and 
perhaps had imbibed some of the unhallowed spirit. But the mission- 
aries, by their life and character, and by the work they are doing, wherever 
I have seen them, have produced in my mind such a change and such an 
enthusiasm — as I might almost express it — in favor of Christian mis- 
sions that I cannot go anywhere without speaking about them and trying 
to influence others in their favor who may be as indifferent as I was. 

This kind of testimony could be indefinitely multi- 
plied. Christian missions stand recognized in all un- 
prejudiced and intelligent thought as occupying a foremost 
place among the creative forces of human progress and 
moral enlightenment. 

As to the current movement and spirit of missions, 
I have seen no clearer brief statement than one found 
in a single paragraph by Mr. Crow. He says: 

Every year the Christian army advances farther into the territory 
of the enemy and adds thousands to its ranks. Go into any market 
town in China, any city of India, into the jungles of Africa, into the frozen 
north, among the cannibals and lepers and barbarians, into the far-away 
places of the great heathen world, and there you are sure to find one of 
the officers of this great army, whose outposts are far in advance of those 
of commerce. But this is no motley band of adventurers intent on hum- 
bling the Moor, despoiling the Jew, and burning heathen villages to plant 
the cross over ashes and dead bodies. It is a carefully organized army 
of Christian civilization, made up of highly trained men and women, 
marshaled at strategic points, who, under brilliant generalship, are laying 
siege at the very strongholds of heathendom. Theirs is a combination 
of the dauntless spirit of the crusader and the deadly efficiency of modern 
system and method. 

The present-day missionary movement, studied from 
any standpoint, proves replete with informing interest. 



218 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

It may not be overlooked that the very central main- 
spring of information, the insouling motive, of mis- 
sions is primarily and exclusively one of highest moral 
and spiritual service to mankind. The missionary mes- 
sage to the Church and to the world is one that calls 
for the most unselfish benevolence, for the largest con- 
secration of both gifts and service. While the success 
of missions in any field means a new market for the 
wares of the manufacturer and the merchant, the cause 
of missions is not a joint-stock corporation in any sense 
which primarily promises a return of cash dividends 
to its investors. It asks outright, from all who are able 
to bestow, free, large, and loving gifts. 

To those who have no appreciation of the moral uses 
of money the whole plan may seem both visionary and 
Utopian. But to all who have entered sympathetically 
into God's methods of helping the world the spirit of 
giving to missions finds its supreme illustration and 
enforcement at the cross where God's Son freely gave 
himself for the world's redemption. It is true that 
selfish business is making vastly larger investments for 
revenue purposes in mercantile and industrial enter- 
prises than the Christian Church is making for the 
promotion of its missions. But in its magnitude, in 
its moral significance, as an index of high faith in and 
devotion to a divine cause, and in unmeasured fruit- 
fulness of results, the Christian consecration of capital 
and cultured life to missions represents the sublimest 
altruism now known to the world. The moral values 
in human education of so large, enthusiastic, and con- 
certed giving of money, of so heroic devotion of individual 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 219 

lives as that now represented in the support of Christian 
missions, are beyond estimate. 

Modern missions, considered as a business enterprise, 
furnish one of the most suggestive chapters of present- 
day life. A vitally important, though the least romantic 
side of missionary endeavor, is the raising of funds in 
the home Church for support of the work abroad. The 
education of the home Church is being conducted with 
increasing movement, thoroughness, and breadth, through 
publications, school training, and platform addresses. 
These and kindred agencies are awakening wide popular 
interest in the work of foreign missions. A great edu- 
cational program is now in process throughout Prot- 
estantism. An increasing liberality is rapidly developing. 
Financial plans are in vogue through which it is sought 
to reach every member in every Christian congregation. 
The aggregate annual gifts of the Churches now reach 
up into the many millions. But it would not be sur- 
prising if within the next ten years the present large 
giving would be increased tenfold. 

The missionary movement is commanding the serious 
attention of the cultured young men and women of the 
present generation. The Students' Volunteer Movement, 
made up of Christian students, as a single agency sent 
out into various fields up to December 31, 191 2, fifty- 
five hundred and sixty-seven workers representing the 
best young life of the colleges. In addition to the great 
number having entered the field, there is in process 
a vigorous movement of propagandism extending to the 
leading colleges throughout the land. Its aim is to 
maintain a constant educational campaign in the in- 



22o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

terests of missions among the various communities of 
students. As a result many thousands who do not 
go into foreign work will enter upon their life pursuits 
in business and in the various professions bearing with 
them an intelligent and lively interest in the cause of 
missions. 

Since the Edinburgh Conference there has been a 
vast growth of sentiment toward a general federation 
of Protestantism for the missionary conquest of the 
heathen world. There is at present no movement in 
the interests of which there is awakened a wider vision, 
none in which there is enlisted a more far-seeing and 
world-statesmanship than the cause of Christian mis- 
sions. This work is so engrossing, its function so im- 
perative, that Dr. John R. Mott could promptly decline 
the ambassadorship to China rather than to turn aside 
from the work of organizing Christian forces for the 
spiritual conquest of the Oriental world. He is a 
veritable leader among the prophets. And there is an 
army of consecrated lives under such leadership looking 
with confident expectation to a near day when the most 
decisive turning of the heathen multitudes to Christ 
shall be witnessed. There is a prophetic feeling brooding 
in the hearts of multitudes that God is preparing the 
way for near and great world-victories for the king- 
dom of his Son. 

Missionary management as now conducted is no 
haphazard affair. The great funds which pass through 
the missionary treasuries have all of them, or nearly 
so, to be secured from the free offerings of the churches. 
To stimulate the spirit of giving in the Church at large 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 221 

requires an inevitable outlay in educational effort, in 
field work, and in other ways. In consideration of 
these necessitated expenses, it is noteworthy that the 
administrative work of the large boards does not absorb 
more than about five per cent on all sums collected. 
This is high commendation for the business economies 
of these boards. 

The boards, as a rule, are housed in spacious and 
well-adapted offices, are composed of representatives 
from the best reputed clergymen and laymen of the 
respective denominations. These boards, collectively the 
custodians of many millions of dollars, are charged with 
the grave and delicate responsibility of giving the most 
efficient administration to these vast sums. The execu- 
tive officers are carefully chosen secretaries, men selected 
because of their high Christian character and assured 
fitness for their important tasks. These men give their 
entire time to the study of mission fields, to the devising 
of methods for the instruction and quickening of the 
interests of the Church at large in the cause, and to such 
other duties, not a few, as may be incident to their office. 
The members of these boards, excepting the secretarial 
officers, render their services without financial com- 
pensation. 

The business functions of the board are so adjusted 
that no single factor entering into mission adminis- 
tration can supposedly escape scrutiny, advisement, and 
direction. There is not a candidate for the mission 
field who does not pass a most searching examination. 
His moral character, his religious experience, his edu- 
cational history, his sanity of view and conviction, his 



222 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

stamina of purpose, his temperamental adaptiveness to 
missionary work, his freedom from financial embarrass- 
ment, his physical fitness — all these are made subjects 
of closest scrutiny. The missionary boards are in- 
creasingly critical, and rightly so, in the process of accept- 
ing candidates. Increasing knowledge of the heathen 
world intensifies the necessity of sending out as mission- 
ary workers only men and women of high spiritual 
and intellectual attainments. In the heathen mind there 
is so much of philosophical discernment, such acute 
ethical and spiritual insight, as to make it not only 
useless but a travesty to send missionary workers of 
inferior intellectual attainments. 

There is no expectation on the part of the authori- 
ties that workers entering the fields are going to achieve 
at once spectacular successes. The work of the 
missionary is one requiring infinite patience and faith. 
The climate is to be mastered, the languages and cus- 
toms to be learned, and the respect and confidence of 
natives are to be won as very preliminaries to missionary 
usefulness. There is little in the life to minister to fickle 
fancies or romantic notions. The missionary who enters 
intelligently upon his work is prepared to expect long 
and laborious waiting before he shall reap the fruits 
of success. 

" Moffat was in Bechuanaland eleven years before 
he baptized his first convert; Carey waited seven years 
for his first convert in India, and John Beck was in 
Greenland five years before there was any indication 
of interest in his work. Missionaries worked in Uganda 
four years with no visible results. Morrison labored 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 223 

in more or less secrecy in China for twenty-seven years, 
praying for the time when he would be able to hold 
public meetings, and died without seeing that accom- 
plished. Gilmour preached twenty years in Mongolia 
before he could report visible results. The first Zulu 
was converted after fifteen years of work." 1 

We have noted the phenomenal success of winning 
converts to the Christian faith. But this success, in- 
spiring as it is, falls far short of measuring the results 
of missionary effort. Wherever the missionary has gone, 
there the institutions of education spring up. There 
are now established in the mission fields of the world, 
and as the direct outcome of missionary effort, more 
than thirty-two thousand nine hundred and eighty 
schools grading all the way from the college and the 
theological school down to the kindergarten. In these 
different schools there are in training nearly three mil- 
lion, five hundred thousand pupils. In the list of insti- 
tutions named there are eighty-six of university or college 
grade, and more than five hundred theological training 
schools or classes, most of which are entirely devoted 
to the preparation of native workers. The educational 
work thus summarized is monumental, magnificent. 
But it represents only inside figures. It is but a leaven 
of saving influence, self-multiplying, which more and 
more will work its enlightening way into and through 
the great masses of native workers. 

The British Blue Book of 1904 says, "From a very 
early date missionary societies have played an important 
part in the development of Indian education." The 

1 Carl Crow, World's Work, October, 1913. 



224 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

boys and girls educated in the mission schools, in many- 
cases, come to commanding influence in government 
positions. Sir Andrew H. L. Fraser, late lieutenant- 
governor of Bengal, says, "It has been my policy to 
find out the school from which boys who are candidates 
for government service come, and I find that the best 
boys have come from missionary schools and colleges." 

Dr. James S. Dennis, an authority on education in 
India, says, "The educational enthusiasm which plans 
large things for the benefit of all classes of the Indian 
population has pertained almost wholly to the program 
of missions." 

Hand in hand with the missionary have gone the 
physician and the nurse. The mission of Christianity 
is to the bodies as well as to the souls of men. There 
have been planted in missionary territory sixty-seven 
medical schools and schools for nurses. Under the 
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church alone there are operated nineteen 
hospitals. The hospital work of Christian physician 
and nurse- has made an enormous impression upon 
the heathen mind. It lends great reenforcement to mis- 
sionary work. 

The work of the missionary puts so beneficent a touch 
upon manifold human interests as to make the classifica- 
tion of all its benefits impossible. I again take pleasure 
in quoting from Mr. Crow: 

If any proof were needed of the really superior abilities of the mission- 
aries, it is to be found in their contributions to science. We owe to them 
practically all our present knowledge of foreign languages. The vast 
extent of their work along this line can be appreciated by the fact that 
the Bible is now published in more than six hundred tongues, though 



CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 225 

in the year of the American Revolution it was known in less than seventy. 
Set yourself to learn one hundred Chinese characters or a page from 
an Arabic dictionary, and you will have a new respect for the missionary 
who is required to master one of these languages. Yet, the task of 
translating the Bible into these great but difficult tongues is easy com- 
pared to that faced by other workers who have found tribes with a lan- 
guage so poor that even the simple message of Christianity could not 
be told in it. There the missionary has undertaken the tedious task of 
building up and enriching the language, adding new words or new com- 
binations of words. After years of work of this kind, he is able to tell 
the story he came to tell. I know a missionary who has been working 
among the Eskimos for eight years, and has not yet been rewarded with 
a convert, but he is not discouraged. In a few years more he will have 
educated the natives to the point where they will be able to understand 
his message, and then he expects results. 

It is not alone in philology that the missionaries have distinguished 
their professions. It was a missionary who first explored Africa, and 
gave the first impetus toward the development and enlightenment of 
that great dark continent. ... A Yankee missionary manufactured the 
first set of movable types for the Chinese, thereby making possible the 
development of the Chinese newspaper. And we who live in the Orient 
owe the jinriksha to the inventive genius of another. More than twenty- 
five years ago the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
sions was able to fill a large book of five hundred pages with a record of 
the contributions of missionaries to science, and a second volume of equal 
size would be necessary to bring the record up to date. 

If there is one supreme message in the history of 
Christian missions, that message is not one of discourage- 
ment. The history itself, however ample, is ever amplify- 
ing; but in all the record there is no room for doubt. 
The territory of missionary achievement is one lighted 
along all its borders by the radiance of a coming glory, 
and across all its spaces herald voice answers to herald 
voice in proclamation of the sure and victorious triumph 
of Him to whom God shall give a name above every 
other name that is named either in the heavens above 
or in the earth beneath. 



THE INWORKING GOD 



227 



Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go 
away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but 
if I go, I will send him unto you. And he, when he is come, will convict 
the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, 
because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to the 
Father, and ye behold me no more; of judgment, because the prince of 
this world hath been judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, 
but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, 
is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from 
himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak: and 
he shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify 
me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you. — John 16. 7-14. 

"Spirit, who makest all things new, 
Thou leadest onward: we pursue 

The heavenly march sublime. 
'Neath thy renewing fire we glow, 
And still from strength to strength we go, 

From height to height we climb. 

"To thee we rise, in thee we rest; 
We stay at home, we go in quest, 

Still thou art our abode. 
The rapture swells, the wonder grows, 
As full on us new life still flows 

From our unchanging God." 

The Kingdom is coming, not come; the Church is making, not made. 
Christendom is, in a sense, a word of the past; its history may be traced 
out and written down. In a sense it is a word of the present, representing 
a mighty living force to-day. Still more is it a word of the future, for 
as yet we have not been able to see what "Christianity" fully means. 
He was right who, in answer to the question, Is the Christian religion 
"played out"? replied, "It has not yet been tried." The disciples of 
the kingdom are, as yet, far from having exhausted the resources of the 
treasure house intrusted to their care. — W. T. Davison, M.A., D.D. 



228 



CHAPTER XII 

THE INWORKING GOD 

Under the charm of his indescribable personality, 
the little band of disciples for three wonderful years, 
more or less, had been companioned with Christ. In 
this time they had come to associate his continual pres- 
ence with them as indispensable to the realization of 
their most cherished hopes and intense ambitions. When 
the fact really came home to them that Christ was 
about to go bodily and finally from their presence they 
were grief-stricken, appallingly disappointed. 

It was then that Christ said unto them: "It is better 
for you that I go away. If I go, I will send you another 
Comforter, and he, the Spirit of Truth, shall take of 
the things of mine and shall show them unto you. He 
will guide you into all the truth." 

This promise of the Holy Spirit, made by the departing 
Christ, is one so infinite in significance that its wealth 
of meaning has hardly yet begun to be understood, 
much less appropriated in the faith of the Church. The 
Holy Spirit is God in the world working through the 
ages the mission and kingdom of Jesus Christ. Christ 
in his person, in his mission, in the purpose for which 
he became incarnate, was a being immeasurably larger 
than was at all apprehended even by those who stood 
nearest him in the days of his flesh. To interpret 
this being, and to fulfill his purpose, is the mission 

229 



2 3 o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

of the Holy Spirit even to the end of the earthly 
ages. 

I can but believe that in Christian thought generally 
a too narrow construction has been given to the mission 
of the Spirit. We have emphasized his work in pro- 
ducing in the individual, conviction of sin, the penitent 
purpose, and in setting the seal of divine pardon upon 
the truly repentant soul. We have extolled the mis- 
sion of the Spirit in his office of regenerating and sancti- 
fying the life of the believer. We must never give less 
emphasis to his work in these vital processes of individual 
salvation. 

But the Spirit doing all this does immeasurably more. 
He is the one vital and adequate agent for directing 
and effectuating all the processes of Christ's kingdom 
in the earth. There is no factor of knowledge, of dis- 
position, of beliefs or thought or deeds which shall con- 
tribute to the making of Christ's kingdom with which 
the Spirit has not to do. It is his mission to break 
down the standards, and to banish the darkness of 
paganism by the introduction and substitution of Christly 
ideals, and by the continuous and increasing revelation 
to mankind of Him who is the Light of the world. 

The stress which the apostolic writings, especially 
those of Saint Paul, lay upon the function of the Spirit 
in dealing with the moral necessities of mankind, and 
in making for these necessities the divinest provision, 
is something little less than amazing. There is no 
moral need of any soul for which the Holy Spirit does 
not seek to make instant and adequate response. Saint 
Paul's conception of the ministry of Christ through 



THE INWORKING GOD 231 

the Spirit was so transcendent that he taxed his ut- 
most ability and the capacity of language even to attempt 
its expression. But aside from his divine and mar- 
velous dealings with the individual soul, it is the mis- 
sion of the Spirit so to deal with the entire world as 
finally to bring it under the scepter and dominion of 
Jesus Christ. 

The processes of the Spirit are moral. Whatever 
standing-room the Spirit may have in man's moral 
nature, it remains true that all the lower instincts, all 
the animal, selfish, cruel, and barbarous heredities, will 
rise in stubborn contest against the Spirit's work in 
the individual soul. This is the ground of ceaseless 
conflict. To gain moral supremacy over the individual 
and in turn over civilization is the Spirit's supreme 
task with the human world. This mission is so stu- 
pendous that beside it all enterprises which may challenge 
interest are dwarfed. The triumphs of the Spirit over 
cornmunities and civilizations, historically measured, are 
by slow advances. Christ himself compared the process 
to leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures 
of meal. 

In case of the individual the Spirit can come to con- 
trolling possession only by a process of inworking and 
transformation which makes man morally and literally 
a "new creature" in Christ Jesus. The whole category 
of opposing forces, the progeny of that which Saint 
Paul depicts as the "carnal mind," that mind which 
is enmity against God, must be scourged out before 
the soul shall appear luminous and beautiful with the 
indwelling Christ. The test of the Spirit's reign in the 



2 3 2 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

soul is that one's walk, his daily conduct, the habitual 
outgoings of his life, shall show conformity to the law 
of the Spirit. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, 
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, 
temperance." If a life is Spirit-governed, it will put 
off anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy. Neither filthy 
communication nor lies will proceed from the lips of 
the spiritually minded man. In his relation to his 
fellows, he will be forbearing, forgiving, and in all 
things charitable. 

In the Spirit's larger relation to the world the same 
opposition which controls the unregenerate individual 
is arrayed against his work, only in the former case this 
opposition is on a world-scale. In the world-mass the 
obstacles which the Spirit must overcome are intrenched 
largely in laws, customs, institutions, all of which, in 
the revealing light of the Spirit, are increasingly seen 
as subversive of progress, or as working positive injury 
to human interests. There is no bondage under which 
mankind is more helpless than that of custom. A 
bad custom is a most vicious educator of society. It 
holds its subjects to limited views, to false standards, 
and closes their vision to new advances of truth. It 
has often given the binding force of law to usages which 
in themselves are utterly destitute of moral worth, 
usages which in no way have contributed to the values 
of character. It has often so misdirected the moral 
sense of whole civilizations as to lead them in the very 
name of Christ to monstrous perversions of his Spirit. 
If the moral ideals of an age root themselves in bar- 
barism, then the people of that age, if nominally Chris- 



THE INWORKING GOD 233 

tian, will have a barbarous Christianity, a Christianity 
in whose very name they will commit atrocious out- 
rages against both God and man. 

In a large way, it must be remembered that Chris- 
tianity, numerically small, began its mission face to 
face with a solidly pagan world. Its moral successes in 
its first centuries are a standing marvel in history. It 
brought such inspiring hopes to, and wrought such divine 
transformations in, multitudes of lives as to make its 
progress irresistible. 

But the Church born at Pentecost, by reason of its 
very successes, went under an eclipse of barbarism 
lasting a thousand years. Its faith was nominally 
accepted, and its membership nominally espoused by 
hordes of unregenerate heathen. There were imposed 
upon its life the philosophies, the usages, the godless 
policies and strifes of a pagan world. During this 
long submergence the vital flame of Christianity was 
never wholly extinguished, but it burned only dimly, 
fitfully here and there. Above all and around all were 
the overshadowing traditions and ideals of pagan thought. 
This paganism had mistranslated and caricatured the 
very ideals of the gospel. It had foisted upon human 
credulity base and injurious conceptions of Christianity 
itself. Thus it had seized the very name under which 
Christianity had won its greatest victories as the refuge 
and shelter of philosophies, customs, and conduct which 
were most subversive of the very spirit and purpose 
of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. 

The overcoming of a paganism so well-nigh universal, 
the emancipation of the human mind from its thought- 



234 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

methods, would be a task both intellectual and moral 
of prodigious magnitude. It would prove a task for 
ages rather than for any one generation. Indeed, a priori, 
it might be asked, how could it be possible that so great 
a world-paganism should ever be displaced? It was 
the universal phenomenon with which the world-mind 
was familiar. In the same way one looking upon, and 
familiar only with, winter might ask why should winter 
ever change? But presently, by unobserved approaches, 
the earth sustains a new relation to the sun. A strange 
warmth melts the snows, and under the genial touch 
of new atmospheres the earth teems with life and beauty, 
and the air is musical with bird-song. And we say, 
and say rightly, the whole is one of God's miracles. 

And so upon the great world-paganism, a paganism 
intrenched in the inheritances, customs, and traditions 
of ages, there has come, as the vernal sun in nature, 
pervasive, uluminating, and vitalizing, a movement of 
the Divine Spirit which is surely transforming the cold 
and forbidding winter of human history into the beauty 
and fruitfulness of a new moral springtime. 

We cannot readily overemphasize the greatness of 
the Spirit's world-processes. The progress of the spirit- 
ual enlightenment and transformation of human society 
is a development which is clearly within the processes 
of evolution. The development is not always uniform. 
It is sometimes marked by dynamic outbreaks and up- 
lifts which might properly be named epochs. Following 
the long moral night of the Christian ages, there came in 
successive order such movements as the Renaissance, 
marked by the revival of learning and the creative 



THE INWORKING GOD 235 

awakening of the human intellect; the maritime dis- 
covery of new continents, preparing the way for a new 
world-commerce and a new intermingling of the nations; 
the invention of printing, an agency for the multiplica- 
tion and preservation of knowledge, and the prophecy 
of a world-community of thought; the Reformation of 
the sixteenth century, a movement vastly emancipating 
of the human mind from the spiritual tyranny of ages; 
the movements of free thought in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries, which marked a just and triumphant 
revolt of the human intellect against the bondage of 
priestcraft, of traditional fables, and of spurious phil- 
osophies ; the J;ide of a new spiritual life, as the Wesleyan 
revival, transforming and uplifting the common life of 
a nation, and projecting vast and continuous moral 
movements into all civilizations; the creation and mul- 
tiplication within the last century of new sciences, em- 
bracing all departments of human research, covering 
material nature, the physical, intellectual, and spiritual 
life of man, bringing to man's vision infinite enlarge- 
ment of the universe, unmeasured extension in time 
of creative processes, creating for the human mind new 
standards of thought, and begetting a new passion 
for and love of the truth for truth's sake, placing in 
command of man a universal wealth of new knowledge, 
and yet a knowledge which is but the prophecy of in- 
finite intellectual and moral treasures yet to be realized; 
the growing realization in the present time, through a 
world-mingling commerce, through a world-diffusion of 
common intelligence and interests, of the solidarity 
of man, the world over, in all his material, social, intel- 



236 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

lectual, and moral needs, all of which is but the sure 
prophecy of an ever-closer consolidated community of 
world-interests — all these are but signal landmarks set 
along the way of the world's spiritual redemption. 

We are quite accustomed to regard all these as move- 
ments with which the historian familiarly deals as steps 
in human progress. But who shall tell us how much 
the Holy Spirit had to do in inspiring the human mind 
for the discovery of, and in directing human activities 
for, the development of these great movements? There 
should be no Christian doubt that the Holy Spirit through 
the centuries has steadily wrought by means of these 
movements for the bringing in of Christ's kingdom upon 
the earth. 

But, however wonderful may appear the advances 
already realized, in considering the Spirit's mission as 
a developing process, we must see that the world is as 
yet only at some of the way stations, perhaps early ones, 
along the line of true spiritual progress. It is the mis- 
sion of the Spirit to take of the things of Christ and 
to show them unto men. Christ did not utter all the 
truth. He did not give specific statement to some 
truth, probably a large volume of truth, which may 
finally require application in working out the world's 
redemption. Let it be granted that in his recorded 
teaching there are contained the formative germs of 
all moral, spiritual, and social truth which may be finally 
required for human advancement. He did not attempt 
to develop these germs upon the thought of his genera- 
tion. This would have been even to Christ a task 
impossible. There was no sufficient development of 



THE INWORKING GOD 237 

intellectual apprehension, of spiritual discernment, of 
world-thought, of receptive capacity, to which he could 
have made appeal for the fully developed view of his 
coming kingdom. Among his last statements to his 
disciples was: "I have yet many things to say unto 
you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, 
the Spirit of Truth, is come, he shall guide you into all 
the truth." 

The knowledge of Christ's kingdom is now vastly 
richer than was, or could have been, true for the men 
of Christ's own time. But if Christ in the flesh were 
with us to-day, he would still say to this generation, 
as he said to his own, "There are yet many things nec- 
essary to my kingdom, but ye cannot receive them now." 
The Spirit of truth, he must still work on in preparation 
for those further and higher developments of the King- 
dom for which present human enlightenment is not 
ready. 

Christ, for instance, did not once give direct utter- 
ance in condemnation of slavery. There can be no 
doubt of the utter incompatibility between the spirit 
of his kingdom and the institutions of slavery. The 
triumph of Christ's kingdom could mean nothing less 
than the destruction of all slave systems. Yet, it has 
required eighteen centuries of developed Christian thought 
to abolish slavery from civilization. With the growth 
of moral knowledge the world will be just as sure to 
condemn and to cast out other evils which are now 
domesticated in human society. There exist many 
social, mercantile, and political practices, many ideals, 
prejudices, tempers, which at present are either cher- 



238 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

ished or tolerated in what passes as good society, all 
of which will be rebuked and displaced under the 
standards of more perfect Christian knowledge. Happily 
for such a prediction, the spiritual education of the 
world, the application of Christian thought to the great 
realms of social, mercantile, and political activities, is 
a process now of rapid development and of wide 
movement. 

This is an age of bewildering enrichment in knowledge, 
in science, in invention, in its creation of gigantic mer- 
cantile enterprises and industries. The combined effect 
of all these and kindred factors is to give to the age 
a distinctive place in human history. But with the ad- 
vent of such an age one great fact to be observed is that 
the welfare of man as an individual, the- weal of the 
social and industrial organism as a whole, were never 
so sought and studied as now. The final test of values 
in all thought, science, art, industrial and capitalistic 
enterprises, turns on the decision as to whether these 
factors are promotive of human welfare, whether they 
serve in the last resort the physical, the intellectual, 
and moral betterment of mankind. 

There is such a fact as a divine pragmatism. Of all 
the wealth of modern appliances, appliances which 
have given us in these days a distinctive world, nothing 
receives unreserved approbation except that which con- 
tributes real values to man's individual and collective 
life. Final judgments of values are attained only by 
most severe and sifting processes. Tests as exacting 
as any known in the physical laboratory under the 
dry and white light of science are applied to all thought 



THE INWORKING GOD 239 

end to all activities which appeal for the social or moral 
betterment of society. It requires only a discerning 
study of these testing processes to discover that they 
are governed by ethical and spiritual judgments. The 
Divine Spirit, the Spirit of truth, is never absent from 
their operations. 

Under this divine guidance the race is not only appro- 
priating an ever-enlarging wealth of knowledge, but is 
continuously growing into clearer moral vision, steadily 
being lifted up from animal and material tastes to the 
plane of moral and spiritual judgments. Man as a 
being of unlimited intellectual and moral possibilities 
is taking, in the world's thought, a place of ever-enlarging 
values. New standards of human worth are being 
everywhere lifted up, and in their presence institutions 
and distinctions built on lines of caste, slavery, race 
hatred, wealth, learning, social rank, are all felt to be 
unworthy barriers if separating men from active sym- 
pathy with, or service to, their fellow men. God is 
gradually teaching all civilizations bearing the name 
Christian that man, whatever his race, environment, 
condition, is a creature of such divine possibilities as 
to dwarf all material values and artificial distinctions 
as between men. And so everywhere, and with accel- 
erated movement, there is a growth of humane feeling, 
an enlarging sense of human brotherhood, and a higher 
valuation of any service rendered in the interests of 
humanity. 

So true is this that the ideal heroes of the age, the 
men and women who take the first place in human 
esteem and gratitude, are those who give themselves 



2 4 o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

in most generous and unselfish service for mankind. 
Among the rich, not those who have the greatest fortunes 
are honored, but they who devote their wealth to great- 
est human service; among those of privileged life in any 
sphere, not they who dwell in the spirit of exclusiveness 
or selfishness, but they who use their superior strength 
in giving hands to the weak and in uplifting the less 
privileged — these are they who wear the imperishable 
crown of human gratitude. Our historic heroes are 
the men and women who really give, not their belong- 
ings, but themselves to the service of their fellows. 

If we scan the rostrum of the ages for the names of 
those whom the race ranks as the noblest of its sons, 
names that will never die out of human gratitude, it 
will be discovered that all are names of unselfish, un- 
sordid, and non-mercenary lives. Luther, standing alone 
for a great truth against the throned powers of Europe; 
Kepler, fighting his toilsome way to master the laws 
of planetary motion; Milton, blind and lonely, writing 
the great epic of Puritanism; John Howard, giving his 
life to improve the condition of prisoners; Florence 
Nightingale, moving like an angel of consolation through 
the Crimean hospitals; Wilberforce and George Peabody, 
using unstintedly their wealth and themselves in mis- 
sions of philanthropy; Abraham Lincoln, emancipator 
and martyr; Livingstone, threading the malarial wilds 
of Africa to carry the gospel to its barbarous hordes; 
the Morrisons, the Careys, the Judsons and the Bash- 
fords, giving themselves in consuming zeal for the re- 
demption of heathen races; General Booth planting 
civilization over with Salvation Army camps for the 



THE IN WORKING GOD 241 

rescue of the poor and perishing — these, and an im- 
mortal multitude of others, were filled with a heaven- 
born passion of service. 

But the very qualities in these typical characters 
which command for them the abiding love and admira- 
tion of mankind are those which class them one and all, 
as being in near kinship to the Spirit of Jesus Christ. 
Christ, whose qualities it is the office of the Spirit to 
show to the world, is more and more hailed in human 
thought not only as the supreme moral leader but as 
the most exalted servant of humanity. Christ as re- 
vealer emphasized as very chief truths the Fatherhood 
of God and the brotherhood of man. His entire life 
was characterized by a continuous outpouring of service 
for human needs. His love was utterly unselfish, with- 
out self-seeking. That he might show his perfect human 
sympathy, he put himself in helpful contact with the 
most abject and outcast of human land. 

In order that he might pay the last pledges of what- 
ever of judgment, redemption, or atonement, which 
may have been involved in his mission to the world, he 
stopped short of no service, no sacrifice which those 
pledges required. He emptied himself of the divine 
glory, became poor, was homeless, lived as a servant 
of servants, and finally along a path of agony more 
bitter than was ever traversed by any other mortal, 
he went to death upon the cross. 

The standards of thought, of motive, of service, of 
sacrifice, of flawless loyalty to God and truth, as re- 
vealed in this peerless life, are receiving ever-increasing 
welcome and hospitality, are more and more recognized 



242 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

as the necessary standards for the final civilization. 
And so it is coming to pass in these later days, with 
ever-accelerated movement, with ever-increasing num- 
bers, and in large constructions, that men are hailing 
the "Golden Rule" as containing in itself the final 
solution of the racial, the social, and industrial misad- 
justments of the world. 

The moral movements of this age as inspired and 
marshaled by the Holy Spirit are vital and vast beyond 
any classification. The ideals of Jesus Christ are being 
embodied in thought, in literature, in philanthropy, 
in legislation, in industrial and social philosophies as 
never before. And so it is sublimely true that the in- 
working God is commanding ever-augmenting agencies 
of human service to the consummation of that 

. . . far-off divine event 
To which the whole creation moves. 



THE DIVINENESS OF MAN 



243 



What a piece of work is man! 
How noble in reason! 
How infinite in faculties! 

In form, and moving, how express and admirable! 
In action, how like an angel! 
In apprehension, how like a god! 
The beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! 

— Shakespeare. 

If ye are mystery, I am mind. Ye know that the soul is strong and 
fears nothing when God's breath bears it on. Ye know that I will go 
even to the blue pilasters, and that my tread does not tremble on the 
ladder that mounts to the stars. — Victor Hugo. 

The meaning of human life is revealed in this: that nothing less than 
the infinite and almighty is sufficient for it to work with. Man standing 
beneath the implacable nebulas, in his pinpoint of space, man among 
the eons that threaten to engulf his moment of time, is overwhelmed, 
annihilated; until he learns that everything he has to work upon demands 
the whole power in and beyond and above all these, and he is one with 
that which fills and transcends them. If the power which presents it- 
self as the highest does not apply directly to each element of human 
labor, it is not of that unlimited sufficiency. When simple men demand 
an evangel for daily works and needs, their requisition is the infinite 
and eternal. When idealists aspire after the highest, it is not the highest 
unless it mingles itself with the lowliest drudgery, which it transforms 
into the universal task, God's and ours, of spirit's transcendent self- 
realization. — Charles Henry Dickinson. 



244 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE DIVINENESS OF MAN 

The two supreme facts of Christian revelation are 
— God and Man. These facts are the two foci of the 
moral universe. These facts the Christian revelation 
invests with a distinctive, an infinite, significance and 
value which from no other source could be possible to 
human thought. God, under one conception or an- 
other, has always been a postulate of thought. The 
gradations of conception about God which have been 
entertained in the human mind, from lowest to highest, 
form well-nigh an infinite series. 

Outside of Christianity, Hebrewism undoubtedly 
reached the loftiest view of Deity. The God of the 
later Hebrew thought was a God of unspeakable majesty. 
He was almighty, sovereign, ubiquitous, holy. The an- 
cient litany and song voiced the story of his loving- 
kindness, of his tender and forgiving mercies toward 
his people, and the prophets preach him as a God whose 
righteous and beneficent providence ever broods over 
the world. But if we had no other revelation of God 
than that furnished in the Old Testament, we would 
still be infinitely far from that view and knowledge of 
him which are furnished to us in Jesus Christ. The 
God of the Hebrews would remain to us largely a God 
of unapproachable awe. We would be forced to think 
of him as the God whose voice utters itself, and whose 

245 



246 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

majesty flames, in the thunders and lightnings of Sinai. 
A vision of this God sitting upon a throne, high and 
lifted up, his power irresistible, his holiness a consuming 
fire, would be one to cause us, as it did Isaiah, to fall 
upon our faces in awe and fear. Sovereignty, unapproach- 
able majesty, avenging righteousness are the attributes 
with which the Old Testament clothes God. "Clouds 
and darkness are round about him; righteousness and 
judgment are the habitation of his throne." There is 
more in the picture to inspire fear than to beget a sense 
of confidence and love. 

The New Testament in no sense detracts from the 
might, majesty, and glory of God as set forth in the 
Old Testament. But it presents God to our view in a 
sense that brings him infinitely nearer to our human 
needs, in a sense that inspires our affection, confidence, 
and devotion immeasurably beyond the power of Old 
Testament ideals to evoke. In Jesus Christ God is 
set forth in an absolutely distinct relation to man from 
that declared by any other religion known. In Christ 
God becomes a new being in his relation to us. The 
chief, the central, significance of Christ's revelation 
of God is that God is an eternal Father. The wonder- 
ful thing about Christ is that he is the Son of God. 
Christ's relations to God are those of a Son in holiest, 
closest, and eternal intimacy and harmony with the 
Father. The one purpose in the gospel of Jesus, the 
purpose which subordinates all other movements of 
God toward men, is to bring man into real sonship with 
God. However significant, however transcendent its 
importance, we shall get at the core-meaning of the 



THE DIVINENESS OF MAN 247 

atoning work of Christ only as we interpret it in the 
divine purpose to bring God and man together in the 
eternal relations of Fatherhood and Sonship. 

Here alone man receives his own highest interpreta- 
tion. Here he discovers that he is not made to be a 
mere creature and subject of government. He will 
reach his truest state only as he takes his place in the 
divine family, only as he becomes a son and heir in 
the household of the eternal Father. This is Christ's 
thought, the supreme purpose of his gospel. And who 
does not see that in the moral heirship of redemption 
as thus revealed all artificial ranks, obstacles, and castes 
which men have created between themselves and their 
fellows are remanded to insignificance and nothingness? 
In the redemption and Sonship of the gospel there is 
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, 
there is neither male nor female, for all are one in Christ 
Jesus. Thus the gospel not only brings to the world 
a new conception of God but it brings a new construc- 
tion of man. It makes all men potentially creatures 
of infinite worth, heirs of infinite possibilities. 

The value and power of this conception may be par- 
tially measured by the historic reforms which its advent 
has actually wrought in human society. It introduced 
a new view as to the essential sacredness and dignity 
of all human life. History is clear in its testimony that 
prior to Christ's coming, even in the most refined 
civilizations, human life in many forms was held as 
among the cheapest of commodities. The master uni- 
versally held the legal power of life and death over 
the slave. Many instances are recorded of the most 



248 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

wanton massacre of slaves as a result of the master's 
caprice. 

The enlightened Greek valued the life of his bar- 
barian prisoner taken in war as no better than that 
of a dog. The Roman populace in the palmiest days 
of the empire thronged the arena to amuse itself by 
witnessing the brutal slaughter of men in gladiatorial 
contests. Such murderous exhibitions awakened no 
more compunction among these ancient peoples than 
would the slaughter of game in the chase. Infanticide, 
the exposure and destruction of infants, was a crime 
fearfully prevalent among the most advanced civiliza- 
tions, and there was neither law nor public sentiment 
of any sufficient force to arrest, much less to prohibit, 
this fearful evil. 

Christianity introduced an entirely new ideal into 
the world's thinking. Even the very slaves were in- 
vested with divine rights as the children of God. The 
gladiatorial shows long persisted, but the Church excom- 
municated its members who attended these exhibitions, 
refused baptism to the gladiator unless he pledged him- 
self to abandon his calling, and its preachers and writers 
ceaselessly denounced the gladiatorial contests as wicked. 
It is typical of Christian influence that in the very last 
of these contests, in the year A. D. 404, a monk named 
Telemachus rushed into the arena to separate the con- 
testants. He perished beneath a shower of stones 
which the angry spectators hurled upon him, but his 
death resulted in the final abrogation of the gladiatorial 
contests. 

And so practically Christianity everywhere has entered 



THE DIVINENESS OF MAN 249 

her effective protest against the wanton destruction 
of human life. It has stamped infanticide as a high 
crime in all civilizations. Its exaltation of man as man 
has resulted in the abolishing of the grosser forms of 
human slavery throughout Christendom. And never 
more so than now was its voice lifted in potent protest 
against the oppression of the weak by the strong. The 
emphasis everywhere of its demand upon strength and 
wealth is not for authority but for service. Gibbon 
vividly pictures the undisguised and general contempt 
in which slaves were held by the privileged classes of 
Rome. It was generally felt that nothing good could 
come or was to be expected from the slave class. Both 
their moral and social conditions were on the lowest 
human plane. The slaves as a class were without aspira- 
tion and without hope. They were simply human 
cattle, beasts of burden. 

To this class, for the first time in history, Christianity 
came, bringing a new moral life and the inspiration of 
new hopes. It brought a philosophy of life and char- 
acter which made appeal to many qualities which slavery 
had developed in its subjects. Instead of stoical inde- 
pendence and patrician pride which entered largely 
into the manly ideals of the Roman freeman, Christianity 
enjoined as among its cardinal virtues, "humility, obe- 
dience, gentleness, patience, resignation. " Christianity 
found the groundwork of these qualities already laid 
in the life of the slave. 

Its first great moral conquests were largely from the 
servile classes. The large number of its converts from 
among slaves was made the ground for bitter reproaches 



250 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

from the pagan world. But Christianity transformed 
the life of its slave converts and crowned them with 
a new manhood. Among the heroic records of martyr- 
dom in the days of the persecuted Church frequently 
appear the names of slaves. In Christ they had found 
a new life and a new faith for which they were willing 
even to die. 

These historic illustrations may simply serve to show 
that it was in the very nature of Christianity in its 
practical workings to lay hold upon humanity for man's 
divine exaltation. Its primal declaration to the world 
was a message of the essential sacredness of the human 
soul. It came to all men, including the most lowly and 
unprivileged, proffering the charter of sonship in God's 
family and of heirship in God's kingdom. 

The initial proclamation of Christianity proposing a 
place for all men in the citizenship of a divine democracy 
was made against a well-nigh solid wall of tradition and 
custom which had stood through unrecorded time sep- 
arating the rich from the poor, the privileged from the 
lowly, the learned from the vulgar, the world's aristoc- 
racy from the great unwashed. To all seeming this 
wall was too stout to be breached, too high to be scaled. 
It would be the ready verdict of worldly wisdom that 
the task of Christianity in its presence was both help- 
less and hopeless. But Christ, whose vision sees infinitely 
beyond all appearances, was calmly willing to stake all 
on the final working out of the fundamental and eternal 
potentialities divinely planted in the human breast. 

The love of God's Fatherhood forever moving upon 
the world, the Spirit of divine truth forever working 






THE DIVINENESS OF MAN 251 

in the human reason, will at some time dissipate all 
opposition, and God will come to his own in the divine 
responses of humanity. God's task with our human 
world is yet possibly only fairly begun. The consumma- 
tion may indeed be remotely distant, but the great 
Father will suffer no final defeat. His purposes will 
be crowned in a redeemed and glorified humanity. A 
great fact which has hitherto been too dimly apprehended, 
but a fact which must receive ever-enlarging translation 
into human convictions, is that of God's purpose in man. 
A luminous apprehension of this fact must prove an 
important factor in the education and preparation of 
the race for final harmony with God's plan for the world. 
The potential greatness of man is abundantly attested. 
The ancient singer seemed to catch something of its 
vision when he declared: ''Thou hast crowned him with 
glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion 
over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things 
under his feet." Hints of man's greatness are seen in 
his achievements. The Greek mind has been the world's 
schoolmaster both in philosophy and in art. Plato 
and Aristotle bequeathed to the ages an inexhaustible 
wealth of thought. Greek artists — sculptor and painter 
— have furnished the most transcendent models of 
beauty for all the world. To the Roman genius the 
ages are indebted for the creation of great laws, laws so 
simple in construction that all modern civilizations 
dwell in security under their cover, so perfect in applica- 
tion that all the diverse and complex activities of man- 
kind receive under their control orderly direction with 
conservation of the rights of all. 



25 2 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

The Semitic mind has been the channel of the highest 
religious and ethical thought. From far-away ages, 
and from the luminous heights of their moral attain- 
ment, the Hebrew prophets have stood forth before all 
subsequent ages as men elect of God, the peerless heralds 
of righteousness to mankind. 

The modern mind, in addition to absorbing and 
assimilating the knowledge of all preceding times, has 
given itself to the physical conquests of nature. Human 
science to-day with inquisitorial spirit invades all ma- 
terial and psychic realms, demanding to know the final 
truth, the last secret that may be anywhere resident 
in them all. The spirit of invention has, as by a miracle, 
captured and harnessed for the innumerable and ever- 
multiplying uses of life the hidden forces of nature. 
The oceans are conquered and traversed by triumphant 
fleets of merchandise. Continental spaces have been 
annihilated by steam and electric-sped chariots. The 
most diverse and antipodal races are brought into a 
near and single community of intelligence and interest 
by the electric flash which instantly transmits all thought 
and achievement to the ends of the earth. Human 
industry, guided by intelligence, is a march of triumphal 
conquest and annexation into all the provinces of nature. 
The dynamic forces of the globe are surrendering them- 
selves in tribute to man's all-conquering genius. 

In reviewing the marvels of human achievement, 
two facts merit attention: First, man is greater, vastly 
so, than his creations. Humanity as a whole, is far 
greater than all the literature, the philosophy, the arts, 
the laws, the religious epochs, the sciences and inven- 



THE DIVINENESS OF MAN 253 

tions which have been born of human brain or heart 
or hand. The race is larger than any civilization which 
it has as yet developed. The best civilizations are 
being steadily outgrown. And, so man as a single 
being is immeasurably greater than his greatest achieve- 
ments. Shakespeare's dramas are peerless. But Shake- 
speare is by all heights and breadths greater than his 
plays. Edison has been called the wizard of invention. 
But Edison sees a far larger world than the one he has 
yet conquered. 

A second fact is that the most sovereign achievements 
of man are simply for service. The creature to be served 
is august, a being immeasurably more potential and 
noble than any mere instrument of service. The great 
philosophies, the great arts, the great literatures, the 
great laws, the great inventions, the great aggregations 
of knowledge, the great religions are all ordained for 
the service and advancement of man. Any sane and 
adequate analysis of history must demonstrate man's 
greatness over nature, his greatness over and beyond 
all his own achievements. 

But it remains to be said that when we would form 
approximately some true conception of man's potential 
greatness we must enter the realm of prophecy. All 
the best history of the past does little more than to 
suggest the dawn of man's possible future. God himself 
has lifted before us two standards from which we can 
base a sure prophecy of the godlike future awaiting 
man. The one is the Cross, the other is Evolution. 

In approaching the subject of the cross, one should 
feel profoundly that it is of unfathomable meaning. 



254 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

It is a subject to be approached only with a penitent 
and cleansed vision. If Sinai was majestically articulate 
in declaring God's holy and eternal hostility to sin, 
then the cross of Calvary, as not all other revelations, 
was God's object lesson of the exceeding hatefulness of 
sin itself. Calvary, whatever else it may mean, means 
nothing less than an unmeasured cost, a cost prompted 
by infinite love, and volunteered on the part of God, 
to make possible man's redemption from the indescrib- 
able curse and doom of sin. 

But for the present purpose I elect to consider the 
cross as indicating the measure of God's investment in 
the interests of man. God makes no mistakes. He 
makes no unwise investments. If in studying the 
cross, it magnifies into meanings too large for our meas- 
urement, if its significance radiates into the moral im- 
mensities and eternities, we may not forget that all 
its transcendent meaning anchors and centers itself in 
God's interest in humanity. 

God sees in redeemed man values which not only 
balance, but which immeasurably overbalance all the, to 
us inconceivable, cost of the tragedy. In reflecting upon 
this thought we must not permit ourselves to become 
incredulous because of the vision of the great mass of 
poor, of dwarfed, of sinful, and of apparently worthless 
humanity with which our present observation makes us 
all more or less familiar. We must make Christ our 
human object lesson. As Mary did, we must sit in rapt 
devotion at his feet. We must study him in whom the 
Father declared himself as ever well pleased, until our 
vision shall be filled with God's own ideal of manhood. 






THE DIVINENESS OF MAN 255 

Christ is the kind of Man into whose likeness God pro- 
poses through the transforming grace and nurture of 
his cross to bring all men. If the task to our human 
belief seems insurmountable, we must still not so far 
forget ourselves as to question God's ability to bring 
it to pass. 

It is an impertinence, the impertinence of a conceited 
and infantile mind, to question any part of God's strategy 
in his great campaign of human redemption. When 
Christ went to Calvary no one in the universe knew as 
well as God knew the poor, the degenerate, the degraded 
quality of humanity. God saw it all, and he unhes- 
itatingly assumed all the risk of his redemptive work. 
Men, for reasons most puerile — perhaps because they 
have some fine mahogany furniture, perhaps because 
they think they have refinement of taste, perhaps be- 
cause their intellects are a little more polished — affect 
to despise and to remain aloof from the masses of their 
fellows to whom God has given the same bounteous 
air, and a vision of the same green earth and the same 
over-arching heavens as to themselves. Of all our 
needs, one of the greatest of all is that we should be 
lifted above the petty narrownesses and smallnesses 
of much of the world's present social judgments. God 
justly measures human material. He proposes from 
humanity just as he sees it, just as it is, to develop a 
divine democracy for the citizenship of his kingdom in 
the heavens. The cross testifies to nothing less than 
to infinite values in human nature. 

Of course God is acting on a long calendar for the 
development of his purposes in man. The gospel of 



256 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

Jesus is a gospel of immortality. This age has come to 
be so absorbed in material pursuits that the vision of 
immortality has passed somewhat under eclipse. Our 
thinking to-day about the glories of the immortal life 
is well-nigh in inverse ratio to the values of that life 
itself. But immortality and exhaustless opportunities 
are indispensable conditions for the development of 
humanity in God. The present earthly life at best 
is but rudimentary. Its conditions and limitations are 
such as to exclude the vast majorities of men from real- 
izing the best inborn prophecies of themselves. Men 
in great masses, by the very limitations which press 
upon them in this life, are shut away from attaining 
the ideal either in the sphere of intellectual enrichment 
or of moral development. The opportunity of such is 
yet to come. Immortality will furnish them the limit- 
less landscape and opportunity for the fullest develop- 
ment of their powers. 1 

Who shall measure or picture to us the heritage of 
immortality for the sons of God? We find ourselves 
at present living in a physical universe practically in- 
finite in dimensions and resources. In the sphere of 
intellectual possibilities the immortal mind finds itself 
placed in an immensity of worlds — worlds all of which 
are under a common sway, and the study of which it 
might require an eternity to exhaust. But we may 
not forget that the material universe, immense and 
marvelous as it is, is but of secondary value. God's 
real glory is moral. The crowning destiny which he 

1 In this paragraph I in no way intend to lend support to the theory of a post-mortem 
probation. I am voicing the view only of the unlimited growth toward perfection which 
immortality will afford to all its subjects. 



THE DIVINENESS OF MAN 257 

purposes for man is moral. The highest pursuits and 
enjoyments of the sons of God will be forever spiritual. 
And if God overwhelms our minds by the revelations 
he makes of himself in the physical universe, what in- 
finitely higher moral and spiritual revelations may not 
his sons expect? While eternity progresses, God will 
forever press new revelations of his own exhaustless 
glories upon the unfolding vision and receptivity of 
his children. Not to the most inspired vision as yet 
has there been revealed more than the alphabet of man's 
infinite possibilities. But as the alphabet carries in 
itself the potencies of exhaustless literatures, so the 
best that has yet entered into the visions and experiences 
of prophets and saints is but the foregleams of intellec- 
tual dominions, moral attainments, and spiritual fellow- 
ships which forevermore shall translate men into God's 
likeness. 

Our best vision to-day is nearsighted. We are hedged 
in by barriers of inheritance, of narrow education, of 
untrained faculty, of skeptical habit, all of which bar 
us from wide outlook upon the universe of our real 
possibilities. We are provincial in our habits. Our 
beliefs are narrow. Our spiritual vision is not adjusted 
to telescopic distances. We are like dwellers in caves 
by the seashore rather than explorers of the mighty 
deeps. The wings of our souls are not yet trained for 
familiar nights through the starry spaces. 

But the Christian revelation inspires the faith that 
this being whom we now look upon as so limited will 
in the immortal life find scope for the most godlike 
development. His explorations will transcend the most 



258 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

nebulous heights, his vision will range the eons. His 
life will grow ever richer, his joys ever deeper, his good- 
ness ever more beautiful, his knowledge ever larger, 
his attainments ever more godlike. The wealth of his 
future none can picture, for eternity alone can com- 
plete the history of his progress. 

Now, to the fact of man's supreme significance in 
the universe so inspiringly affirmed by Christian revela- 
tion, evolution lends a wondrous confirmation. Evolu- 
tion has no meaning without God. Unless its pathway 
from dark and dateless beginnings, and through count- 
less eons, leads finally to the portals of moral empire, 
unless at the goal and summit of its purpose there are 
finally to appear the intellectual and moral outworkings 
of Divinity, then, evolution, of all things, would prove 
a monstrous creed. A man who is at once an atheist 
and an evolutionist is one who might well view life 
as the most hopeless of blind alleys — a meaningless 
maze. Evolution may perhaps be, as many thinkers 
believe it must be, accepted as the dominant philosophy 
of the universe. But it becomes increasingly clear 
that evolution is not an end in itself. It is a process 
which is seen to be ever working toward some goal not 
itself. The final goal toward which evolution works 
is something beyond an earth, or a sun, or all the starry 
systems. It has wrought toward these, and has worked 
out all their wondrous perfections. But if this were 
all, the universe would still be mute and meaningless. 

The goal of evolution is a universe peopled with moral 
and spiritual intelligence. This is the final worth and 
significance of it all. Whatever may be true in other 



THE DIVINENESS OF MAN 259 

provinces of the universe, so far as this world is con- 
cerned man stands as the very crown of creation. Noth- 
ing beyond man or better is to be looked for except 
man himself perfected. Whatever, then, may appear 
as the well-nigh infinite investment of the creative and 
ever- transforming processes of evolution, processes which 
have been ever at work through engulfing ages of time, 
evolution itself from its far beginnings has with unerring 
purpose and skill been directed toward the final making 
of man. 

This end evolution will continue to pursue until, in 
the cloudless light of some coming eon, man shall appear 
as the perfected reflection of God. Thus the philosophy 
of evolution lends a measureless emphasis to the in- 
tellectual and moral values of man himself. Man is 
worth all the investment which unnumbered ages have 
contributed toward his production. 

It is this view, with its implications, which lends un- 
measured significance to that swelling passion of the 
modern world which voices itself in the interests of 
emancipating man, physical, intellectual, moral, from the 
long-asserted slaveries. Man, in his inherent rights, in 
his essential worth, in the divinity of his destiny, is coming 
more and more to stand in the focus of the world's best 
thought and service. 

The individual to whom has come luminously this 
broadening and uplifting ideal of man is thereby placed 
under supreme incentive to highest living. Nothing 
need humiliate him save the consciousness of being 
untrue to life's divine aim. He need not even yield 
to the fallacy which would remind him of the smallness 



2 6o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

and insignificance of his place amid the surrounding 
immensities and the countless ages. He has a right 
to think of himself as a being toward whom God has 
wrought through all the eons, and to whom God makes 
possible a destiny more enduring and more glorious 
than the light of all the suns. 

This divine view of man is destined to take an ever- 
growing and controlling place in the common thought. 
The growing sense of man's worth as a spiritual being 
will surely displace the low and sordid ideals which have 
so largely enslaved the past. The barbarism of many 
business ideals is that they have placed more worth 
upon machinery than upon man, they have elicited more 
care for dividends than for the welfare of civilization. 
That labor in sweatshop and factory which stunts the 
physical growth of childhood, that dwarfs both its in- 
tellect and morals, that unfits motherhood for its func- 
tions, thus robbing posterity of its normal birthright 
— all this is a crime against civilization which would 
be impossible of toleration were it not that a greed- 
ridden community has been content to rest in low and 
brutal views as to the worth of human life. Business 
methods that disqualify motherhood and that cripple 
childhood are a very atheism of infamy in God's world 
of humanity. 

When man comes to his rightful place in the thought 
of man, as he surely will, then all society will be morally 
sensitive in the interests of childhood. Motherhood will 
be regarded as a function so holy that all safeguards 
will be sentineled around it. In that day the tempers 
of the gospel of Jesus Christ will be enthroned in human 



THE DIVINENESS OF MAN 261 

society. In the great world of trade, now so invaded 
by motives of piracy, an enlightened sense of equity 
will have been substituted for all unholy and destructive 
business rivalries. In the industrial world ideals of 
manhood, not lust of gold, will be in control. It will 
be a ruling conviction in society that God is dealing 
in this world for the purpose of developing a race of 
godlike men. The age foreseen by the poet is drawing 
near — the Golden Age, that will 

Give human nature reverence for the sake 

Of One who bore it, making it divine 

With the ineffable tenderness of God; 

Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer, 

The heirship of an unknown destiny, 

The unsolved mystery round about us, make 

A man more precious than the gold of Ophir, 

Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things should minister. 

— Whittier. 



MODERN PROPHETS 



i6 3 



New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; 
They must upward still and onward who would keep abreast of Truth ; 
Lo, before us gleam her camp fires! we ourselves must pilgrims be, 
Launch our Mayflower and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, 
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key. 

— James Russell Lowell. 

Cast from our hearts, O Lord of life, 

Our selfishness and pride; 
Help us to choose the toiler's part, 

And suffer by his side. 

Give us courage, Lord, to fight 

With thee all greed of gold, 
To fight until thy kingdom's won, 

Thy kingdom long foretold. 

Love then shall reign supreme o'er all, 

O'er heart and mind and hand, 
Eternal love and brotherhood 

In all this storm-tossed land. 

— Marion Dutton Savage. 

Most of the people whose faces you see in the Sabbath journals are 
of the upper four and a half per cent. We quote the four and a half 
per cent. We want to be acquainted with them. The cockles of our 
heart warm when we mention their names. Artists paint and chisel 
for them. Dressmakers design for them. Grocers cater to them. For 
them the huge hotels are built, and for them the hired singers and dancers 
yodel and caper in the gilt restaurants. 

But things are changing. Newspapers have found out that it is the 
ninety-five and a half per cent they must appeal to. The artists of the 
Renaissance never knew anybody existed except saints and nobles; but 
we have in the modern era an Israels, a Millet, and the Dutch painters. 
And Rodin turns to the laborer and to the generic man for his models. 
Governments are more and more legislating for the great masses. The 
spirit of the ninety-five and a half per cent pervades Washington more 
and more. That is the meaning of the currency bill, the tariff bill and 
the anti-trust laws. That is the significance of the present liberal govern- 
ment in England. Constantly the four and a half per cent are retreat- 
ing in the legislative halls of Germany, France, and Italy, before the self- 
assertion of the ninety-five and a half. The people are arriving. The 
clear thunders of justice are in the air. Humanity is coming of age, 
realizing itself and unloading its riders. — Dr. Frank Crane. 



264 



CHAPTER XIV 
MODERN PROPHETS 

If into Christian thought there should come a dis- 
tinctive, a rising and swelling tide of interest in human 
welfare, it would be safe to assign a divine inspiration 
as the cause of such a movement. That such a tide 
is now invasive of Protestant Christianity admits of 
no intelligent denial. One of the most accredited seers 
of the relations of the Church to present-da}' social 
conditions says, "There is only one great creative enthu- 
siasm in American Protestantism — the gospel of a saved 
society as well as of saved individuals." 1 

The evolution of ideals which call for the betterment 
of human conditions in a sense inclusive of man's entire 
life, physical, intellectual, moral, is one of the most 
pronounced, insistent, and irrepressible developments in 
modern Christian thought. This is not to say that 
the awakened Christian mind has not always been 
actively solicitous in the interest of man's all-around 
welfare. It is in the very nature of Christian experience 
to kindle in the breast of its possessor the spirit of active 
sympathy with human needs. A genuine Christianity 
has always been characterized by a generous charity 
for the assuagement of man's physical woes. This has 
been true in Catholic and Protestant Christianity alike. 

No better examples in illustration could be asked for 

1 Shailer Mathews. 

265 



266 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

than are furnished in Francis Assisi and in John Wesley. 
Both were eminent as saints, both great preachers, 
both voluntarily yielded themselves to a life of poverty, 
both, like their Master, spent themselves in a constant 
ministry of loving service to the poor, the needy, and 
the sick. It is safe to say that no man has ever been 
deeply imbued with the spirit of Jesus Christ who has 
not been moved to benevolence both in spirit and in 
action. 

But at the heart of the present-day Christian enthu- 
siasm for human welfare there is a motive far more 
propelling and dominating than that simply which 
prompts to acts of charity toward the distressed, or 
almsgiving for the relief of the needy. A deep, per- 
vasive, and growing conviction has come into modern 
thinking that it is a part, and no small part, of the mis- 
sion of Christianity to remove the causes, the very 
conditions, from which so much of the world's needs 
and illnesses arise. This conviction arises from, or at 
least is reinforced by, two great facts. First, in the 
phenomenal and growing wealth of the present age, in 
the abundant fruitfulness of nature, there is made to 
appear a sufficiency of resource, if it were equitably 
distributed, to bring a large measure of physical com- 
fort to every human life. 

The fact can neither be obscured nor suppressed that 
in present-day thinking there is a growing conviction 
that the products of prosperity are neither being ideally 
nor equitably distributed among the producers of that 
prosperity itself. And this thought is by no means 
confined to socialistic circles, to malcontents in the 



MODERN PROPHETS 267 

labor world, nor to anarchistic agitators. It is a con- 
viction which is stirring the warm lifeblood of the sanest 
Christian thinkers; a conviction which is receiving due 
exposition and irresistible enforcement at the highest 
seats of Christian learning. A near-coming age is just 
as certain to give heed to this conviction as though it 
were to announce itself by the battering-rams of war 
thundering against its very doors. 

The other great fact, a fact divinely certain at some 
time in the evolution of Christian thought, to come 
to full expression and recognition, is that which asserts 
the rightful claim of every man to an inheritance in the 
bounties of a common Father. The central revelation 
of Jesus Christ concerning God's Fatherhood is at once 
the most revolutionary, the most far-reaching and con- 
structive fact which has ever worked itself into human 
intelligence. If the stupendous doctrine of God's Father- 
hood is true, then, the twin doctrine to this, a doctrine 
equally true, is the brotherhood of man. If all men 
are the sons of God, this definitely means that the time 
will surely come when in our human world there will 
be no longer room for castes which cruelly separate man 
from man, no longer room for invidious distinctions be- 
tween the rich and the poor, between the learned and 
those less favored, when in society and in business it 
will be no longer tolerated that any man because he is 
rich and powerful shall take advantage of his weaker 
brother. 

This principle ramifies itself into all human relations. 
It is susceptible of infinite application. If man is God's 
son, if he is embraced in the redemptive love of Jesus 



268 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

Christ, if as immortal he may have a career of deathless 
citizenship in God's kingdom, then he is a being en- 
titled to sacred consideration from all men. 

It is, of course, very clear — nothing is more painfully 
clear — that the world has not yet practically learned 
to place these values upon man. But if the doctrines 
of God's Fatherhood and of man's brotherhood are 
divine truths, then the values and relations for men 
which these truths call for furnish the only right standards 
of human measurement. The truths themselves can 
neither be destroyed nor displaced. God will never 
vacate his Fatherhood; and only by self -forfeiture can 
any man be deprived of the rights of sonship. From the 
beginning God has had to deal with a world made per- 
verse through ignorance, selfishness, and transgression. 
But he deals patiently. Gradually the divine light in- 
vades and overcomes man's darkness. There are times 
when light breaks forth suddenly over large areas of 
thought. God is not failing in his purposes. He is 
surely working toward a civilization in which the sacred 
character of man as man shall have central and regulative 
recognition. 

At present, though well-nigh unapprehended by the 
common thought, there is arising a great new moral 
education in the Church. This movement is so large, 
so enlightening, so inspirational, that it would seem 
fittingly characterized as the f oreheralding of the mightiest 
revival thus far known in the interests of the Kingdom. 
This movement has as its forerunners and expounders a 
new school — a school of present-day and inspired prophets. 
This school specially emphasizes the demands for social, 



MODERN PROPHETS 269 

business, and civic righteousness. These modern men, 
with conscience and vision such as mark their kinship 
with the great prophets of ancient Israel, are fearlessly 
focusing the white light of investigation upon all con- 
ditions — social, commercial, and civic — of our modern 
life. With patience and thoroughness, they are master- 
ing the very anatomy of all the forces which shape our 
modern world. As men moved solely by high and right- 
eous purpose, as men inspired for their task, they are 
furnishing a new exposition and application of the ethical 
principles of the gospel to all conditions of presentday life. 

We call this a new movement in Christian thought. 
In its deeper and distinctive character it is really such. 
It is both a noteworthy and surprising fact that less 
than two decades ago there was almost no distinctive 
literature on the social aspects of Christianity. 1 To-day 
there is a swarming product of this literature coming 
from the most virile brain of the Church. One message 
of this literature to the Church is that its traditional 
administrative methods are not adapted to deal effectively 
with the dynamic exigencies of modern life-movements. 
It is a summons to the churches to unite their counsels for 
the readaptation of old, or for the creation of new, methods 
for the better discharge of their mission to the world. 

The spirit of the new prophet is not flippant. He 
is made grave by the magnitude of his tasks. He de- 
sires to do no injustice even to those whose practices 



1 The names of those leading and promoting the new awakening are too numerous to 
be listed here. Among them are: Peabody, Hill, Nash, Cunningham, Brooks, Keble, 
King, Mathewe, Rauschenbusch, C. R. Brown, Leighton, Ward, Howerton, J. B. Clark, 
Hall, Dickinson, Carlisle, Plantz, Cairns, Strong, S. G. Smith, Clow, Williams, Gladden, 
Welch, Earp, F. M, North. R. T. Ely, E. B. Gowin; and these are but a few of the 
valiant thinkers, who, on both sides of the seas, are summoning to the new social age. 



2 7 o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

he feels forced to expose and arraign. He knows but 
too well how insidious are the motives which hold men 
in bondage to courses of conduct and of business life 
which cannot be approved in the light of unclouded 
Christian convictions. He knows the moral fallacies 
which deceive men, and under which they sincerely 
seek self-justification. He utters his message, let it 
smite where it may, with no fondness for censure of 
the individual wrongdoer, in no spirit of malice toward 
any. Turning neither to the right nor to the left, he 
seeks to place himself securely and only on those prin- 
ciples of equity and truth through which alone the 
righteous interests of all men can be best served. In 
this spirit he makes no compromises with corporate 
selfishness, he stands in no awe of plutocratic dictation. 

But the new prophet of to-day, as the prophet of 
old, must lift up his voice against wrongs which are 
powerfully intrenched in the heredities, customs, posses- 
sions, in the selfish greeds and ambitions of men. He 
must direct his message against very principalities and 
powers founded in social, industrial, and political in- 
justices. The god Mammon rules in a wide realm, a 
realm which grades from the highest to the lowest scale 
in reputational appearances. His worshipers are some- 
times numbered among pewholders in fashionable 
churches. Some of his most loyal subjects take high 
rank as philanthropists. Their names stand high on 
the lists of contributors to humane benevolences. 1 But 



1 1 am immeasurably far from any intention to disparage a wealthy church member- 
ship in itself considered. I am the last to doubt that many wealthy Christians are not 
only men of highest integrity but men of deep and conscientious piety. But I as little 
doubt that in too many instances bad rich men wield too much influence in the Church. 



MODERN PROPHETS 271 

the same Mammon is a chief counselor in the director- 
ates of the saloon and the brothel. It is his minions 
who manage the nameless underworld traffics, who pass 
the bribes in politics, who corrupt the police forces, 
who commit the graft robberies in municipal business, 
who water and vitiate the stocks of corporations, and 
who sometimes for their nefarious ends purchase the 
influence of the press. 

And there is nothing which Mammon so much desires 
as to be let alone. He has great plans in the execution 
of which he ill brooks interference or disturbance. 
He takes no stock in fine moral distinctions. He sees 
no necessity for honest politics. He is no believer in 
municipal reform. And when it comes to such ques- 
tions as improving the conditions of the poor, of giving 
to labor an enlarged share in the fruits of industry, of 
lessening the evils of the saloon and the brothel, he is 
an utter skeptic as to the possibilities of betterment in 
the situations. He says these conditions have always 
existed, and they always will exist. It is only a Utopian 
visionary who can think otherwise. He is utterly skep- 
tical and obstructive in the presence of moral propo- 
sitions because he is the receiver and keeper of the spoils 
of all disreputable traffics and evil processes. 

There is no chapter in man's history more discreditable 
or hopeless than the ease with which in multitudes of 
cases he has blinded himself to moral distinctions. In 
the direction in which selfish interests have impelled 
him he welcomes no moral corrections. As by the 
magical illusions of some black art, he makes himself 
believe that black is white, and that evil is good. Mem- 



272 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

bers of the Honorable East India Company, amassing 
wealth from the untrained and unenlightened popula- 
tions of India, made themselves believe that the intro- 
duction of Christian missions would be "pernicious, 
imprudent, useless, harmful, dangerous, profitless, fan- 
tastic/ ' 

Why? Doubtless because they had the instinct to 
perceive that the spirit of missions would prove inimical 
to business policies which could not bear the light of 
the Ten Commandments. It is only a little while since 
when American slave owners searched their Bibles to 
find divine justification for their institution. The traffic 
in human flesh and blood was defended, and no doubt 
sincerely so, from Christian pulpits. The belief in the 
legitimacy of slavery had such support, that even in 
Boston William Lloyd Garrison was mobbed and dragged 
through the streets because he had the courage to utter 
his indignant protest against what he believed was 
a national iniquity. 

There is no traffic, however inherently bad, that 
yields a revenue of lucre which some men will not be 
found to espouse and defend. There are many lines 
of business, entirely legitimate in themselves, which are 
under nonapprovable management. There are industries 
so conducted as to give the impression that their man- 
agement holds manhood and even life itself as things 
most cheap, well-nigh as cheap as the very fuel which 
is cast under the boilers to keep the wheels of these 
industries moving. Some of these industries employ 
armies of children, small and tender children, who ought 
to enjoy the gambol of forest and meadow and open 



MODERN PROPHETS 273 

sunlight, children whose sacred right it is to have 
guaranteed to them the best advantages which organized 
society can furnish of school and training for future 
manhood and citizenship, yet these industries, for the 
sake of keeping pace in the march of competition, for 
the sake of paying fat dividends to stockholders, take 
these children from the sunlight and from the schools, 
and herd them in stuffy factories, and grind their tender 
fiber into the products of machine and loom, with the 
result that before normal middle manhood is reached 
they are cast out withered and bent with premature 
age, intellectually and morally dwarfed, physically spent, 
fit only for 'the slag-heap of wasted humanity. 

The average legislature has come to construe this 
thing as a crime against civilization, and yet it is astound- 
ing to note how few Christian (!) proprietors have from 
any moral compunctions of their own decided to dis- 
continue this kind of childhood employment. There 
seems in lucrative revenues some fell power both to 
blind and to bribe the consciences of men who profit 
by the same. 

God only knows how much the Church, in many 
instances, is shorn of moral strength, robbed of its hold 
upon the affection, respect, and confidence of the poor, 
because of the domination in its counsels of some man 
or men whose business life and methods will not stand 
the scrutiny of the public conscience. It is interesting 
to note what clear and positive judgment these men 
have as to the limitations and proprieties which should 
be observed by the Christian pulpit. The preacher may 
feel free to roam eternity as far as his imagination may 



274 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

bear him. He may discourse at will upon the beauties 
of heaven and upon all post-mortem delights. But 
there are certain provinces in this world which he may 
not enter. Except in glittering generalities, he must not 
preach either political or business ethics. He dwells 
so habitually in the realm of abstract meditation, so 
apart in the quiet of his own unvexed professional world, 
that he can have no practical appreciation of business 
life. He would be likely to make an unwise exhibition 
of himself if he should undertake to expound ethical 
principles for business conduct. If, before election, 
he should preach on the duties of citizenship, he would 
be charged with indiscreet meddling in politics. 

The truth is that the worshipers of Mammon, both 
in and out of the Church, desire simply to be let alone. 
They do not welcome the voice of any true prophet. 
They are the children of an ancient ancestry who said 
to the seers, "See not"; and to the prophets, "Prophesy 
not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, 
prophesy deceits." As though thus they could escape 
a vision of the Holy One of Israel! 

The message of the modern prophets, like that of 
their ancient prototypes, is like the driving of a plow- 
share through all the subterfuges of unethical social, 
industrial, mercantile, or political life. The mission that 
crowned the Hebrew prophets with undying glory, that 
installed them as the peerless moral teachers of all sub- 
sequent ages, was essentially political in its character. 
It was a mission of patriotism. Their mission was a 
trumpet-call to the nation for social justice, for the 
rights of the poor, for righteousness in all human rela- 



MODERN PROPHETS 275 

tions. With a united insistence that is most impressive 
when carefully studied, the prophets declare that God 
does not accept the ostentatious worship, the offerings 
of prayer and of sacrifices in the sanctuary, of those 
who are the oppressors of the poor and the friendless, 
who are defrauders in deals and who suppress the wages 
of the laborer. 

"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices 
unto me? saith the Lord; I am full of the burnt offerings 
of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in 
the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. . . . 
Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination 
unto me. . . . When ye spread forth your hands, I will 
hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many 
prayers, I will not hear : your hands are full of 
blood." 1 

For those who violate judgment between a man and 
his neighbor, who oppress the stranger, the fatherless 
and the widow, their membership in the Church is a 
mockery. God may be insulted by the very gifts which 
they pile upon his altars. Let them not trust in lying 
words, saying: "The temple of the Lord, the temple 
of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these." 2 There 
are those to-day who store up the spoils of violence and 
robbery in their palaces. But of these houses of rob- 
bery, the Lord says, "I will smite the winter house 
with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall 
perish, and the great houses shall have an end." 3 They 
that have put burdens upon the poor and have robbed 
him of his share of the wheat have built to themselves 



Isa. 1. ii-is- 3 Jer. 7-4- 'See Amos 3. io-iS- 



276 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

houses of hewn stone, and have planted pleasant vine- 
yards. They have afflicted the just, they are takers 
of bribes, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from 
their right. But because of their own evil practices 
"they hate him that rebuketh in the gate" — that is, 
he who exposes dishonest dealings in the market — "and 
they abhor him that speaketh uprightly." 1 They that 
swallow up the needy and make the poor of the land 
to fail, who falsify the balances by deceit, making the 
selling measure small and the price great, who buy the 
poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes — these, 
however proud and mighty, cannot hope to escape 
punishment, for the Lord hath sworn: "Surely I will 
never forget any of their works." 2 

In the commonwealth of Israel, land was the source 
of common prosperity. Isaiah warns against inordinate 
private ownership of land. "Woe unto them that join 
house to house, that lay field to field." 3 "Woe unto 
them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their 
beds! when the morning is light, they practice it, be- 
cause it is in the power of their hand. And they covet 
fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take 
them away; so they oppress a man and his house, even 
a man and his heritage." 4 Not least among the features 
which excited God's anger against his ancient people 
were the evil habits of women who lived in luxury and 
idleness on the fruits of ill-gotten spoils. The prophet 
likens these women to cattle. "Hear this word, ye kine 
of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which 
oppress the poor, which crush the needy. . . . The Lord 

1 See Amos 5. 10. 2 Ibid. 8. 4-7. 3 Isa. 5. 8. * Micah 2. 1, 2. 



MODERN PROPHETS 277 

God hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the day shall 
come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, 
and your posterity with fishhooks." 1 

A review of the prophetic eras of Israel and Judah 
cannot fail strikingly to impress us with the similarity 
of the moral features of those eras as compared with 
the present. The same evils which excited the indig- 
nation of the ancient prophets have sprung up abun- 
dantly in our own prosperous civilization. If, anciently, 
there was a providential demand for the prophet, that 
demand is certainly not less in the present. Both the 
wealth and the corruptions of Israel and Judah, as 
compared with those of our own day, were on a very 
minute scale. Beyond anything dreamed of in ancient 
Syria our populations are vast, our social civilizations 
complex, the power of capital incomparable. 

To this civilization, this civilization of great complexity, 
in which side by side with superlative excellencies there 
inhere gigantic wrongs, a new race of prophets has come. 
These men are expert students of modern world con- 
ditions. Their task is enormous, but to their aid science 
has brought every appliance. All that the world's 
most enlightened advancement can contribute to knowl- 
edge is at the disposal of these men. All history, lu- 
minously at their command, contributes its lessons of 
the past. A world-comprehending information comes 
daily to their hand. The work of innumerable experts 
in every department of research, in cyclopedic system, 
is before them. The sociological conditions of both 
city and country, as scientifically secured, are their 

1 Amos 4. 1, a. 



278 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

possession. International and interracial relations in 
their action and reaction upon world-interests, and all 
the problems which these relations reveal for world- 
solution, are now in view as never before. The power 
of capital, its multiplex uses in civilization, the regal 
conditions of wealth; the vast army of labor, the prob- 
lems of poverty, the growing and crying discontents 
of the poor; the menacing, and seemingly irreconcilable, 
alienations between capital and labor — all these, with 
all other questions which they involve, are lifted into 
clear light before the vision of these men. 

If never before any school of world-students entered 
upon a mission so large, so difficult, certainly never be- 
fore did any men enter upon their work with such a 
wealth of equipment and advantage at their disposal. 
Who are these modern prophets now facing these numer- 
ous problems? They are men of high culture, men of 
vision who have both large insight into and outlook 
upon life. They are patriots, men with a large love 
of country. They are lovers of their kind, men who 
see the larger possibilities in human nature, and who 
ardently desire to remove obstacles to progress and to 
promote the conditions through which all men may 
come to their best. 

They are independent thinkers. They are not the 
hired creatures of either corporate or private interests. 
They are not partisans. Their vision is not blinded by- 
greed. They are unselfish workers for humanity. They 
have the courage of their convictions. The most fruit- 
ful source of their ideals is the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
They exalt Christ himself as the supreme Teacher and 



MODERN PROPHETS 279 

Exemplar of the new humanity. They dwell in clear 
atmospheres of thought and of observation. The moral 
qualities of the social, industrial, mercantile, and polit- 
ical worlds are by none more clearly seen and measured 
than by these. To them in an eminent degree is given 
to view the evils, the frauds, the injustices, the oppres- 
sions of society as in the very white light of righteousness. 
Their indignation is aroused against all monopolistic 
policies, the execution of which means the depression of 
the social, intellectual, or moral possibilities of the poor 
and the defenseless. Their sense of human worth is 
so supreme, their view of God's impartial love for all 
his children so clear, that, as in the case of their ancient 
prototype, the word of the Lord is in their hearts as a 
burning fire shut up in their bones, so that they cannot 
refrain from lifting up their voices until the Lord shall 
have delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of 
evil-doers. 1 

Such are some of the characteristics of the new prophet. 
Unawed by the traditions of authority or the conspiracies 
of evil, he utters as clearly and fearlessly the Lord's 
rebukes against the failures of the Church as against 
the iniquities of a despotic plutocracy. The new 
prophetic voice is no passing phenomenon. More and 
more this voice is commanding the ear and stirring the 
heart of the age. The new prophecy will be resisted, 
stoutly and valiantly so, by all the forces of selfish greed ; 
but it will persist until it has clarified the vision of so- 
ciety. There can be no mistaking the signs of the times. 
A new and divine education is setting into the age. The 

^See Jer. 20. 9-1 3. 



2 8o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

atmosphere of such a movement is irresistible. Like 
the touch of a spring sun upon the accumulated snow 
and ice of winter, the stoutest barriers of misguided 
opinion, and of greed-born prejudices will be dissolved 
under its power. New standards of public opinion will 
be lifted up, old and good ideals will be reinforced and 
new ones enthroned. God's ideal of man will come 
into the clearer light, and new views of philanthropy and 
service will have larger sway. 

If we really believe in the earnestness of God's pur- 
pose in connection with this human world, it is both 
our duty and privilege to cherish and to cultivate a 
prophetic outlook upon the future. God is not lifting 
his hand from the world. He is touching in innumer- 
able ways, many of them undiscerned by our vision, 
this world for its uplift and transformation. We cannot 
picture too bright a vision of what this world will be 
when upon its face God shall have completed his own 
holy city, the New Jerusalem. But as transcending as 
may be our conception of the future glory toward which 
God is working, we should not permit ourselves to be 
blind to the processes of the present. 

Our own times are astir with the intermingling trends 
of great moral and spiritual movements. What is it 
that has begotten at the heart of Protestantism its 
newborn passion for the saving of human society, for 
making of this world itself an abode of righteousness? 
What is this but a divine movement, a movement for 
the ushering in of Christ's kingdom? Before our very 
vision, if we have eyes to see, the Spirit of righteousness 
is subsidizing and inspiring innumerable powers for 



MODERN PROPHETS 281 

the upbuilding of the Kingdom. The Church is not 
to be arraigned as either a failure or derelict because 
it does not at first-hand direct all these forces. It is 
to her glory that she has so inspired the spirit of her 
Master into civilization that the State and a multitude 
of organizations have taken over many of the functions 
and much of the work which formerly were directed by 
the Church alone. This does not mean that the Church 
has lost its function, nor that the world is growing less 
Christian. It simply means that God is multiplying 
the chariots in which the forces of his kingdom are moving 
to swifter victory. 

All movements promotive of civic righteousness, of 
social purity, of business honesty, of individual justice, 
of the common rights and brotherhood of man are move- 
ments in the upbuilding of the Kingdom. Everything 
done in the way of giving better place, atmosphere, and 
education to childhood, of furnishing improved physical 
environment to the home, of putting before the common 
vision better and more correct ideals for practical living, 
all are agencies of the Kingdom. The passion for the 
real things of the Kingdom was never so potent, its 
constructive processes were never so effective and splen- 
did as now. The higher ideals for which the Church 
has stood are being carried forward to-day in a 
thousand forms of beneficent activity. The kingdom 
of Christ on earth was never moving forward so visibly, 
so vigorously, so triumphantly as now. 

If compelled to admit, as is doubtless the fact, that 
the Church itself is having a somewhat difficult experience 
in adjusting its formulas to the knowledge and thought- 



282 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

processes of the modern world, that it is confronted 
with the necessity of critical readaptations of methods 
to enable it most effectively to meet present-day needs, 
yet the truth seems to be that one of the profoundest, 
widest, and most far-reaching revivals in its entire his- 
tory is now in process. It may be in its present phases 
a revival of educational ideals, but nevertheless a revival 
which holds in itself the prophecy of a most fruitful 
spiritual future. 

This revival is a Christian Renaissance. Its signif- 
icance is in its translation of Christianity into terms 
of modern world thought, in its correlation of Christian 
truth with the verified scientific thought of the present 
age. This means that theology is to be shaped by 
cosmical and biological rather than by governmental 
and mechanical conceptions. It means, freed from the 
restraints of hierarchical edicts, liberty for the indi- 
vidual to pursue his own spiritual life. It means that 
the coming era of church life will be characterized by 
a broad hospitality to the quest of truth, that the ruling 
spirit of the Christian community shall be one of open 
harmony with scientific methods of thought. It means 
that the most vital test of orthodoxy, the accepted test, 
will be where Christ himself placed it — that its criterion 
and credential shall be furnished in character, in the 
sanity of ethical and intellectual life rather than in a 
forced subscription to technical dogma. It means that 
in the organic life of the Church spiritual liberty and 
intellectual freedom shall be permitted unmolested to 
walk hand in hand with each other. It means for the 
Church of the future a richer heritage of thought and 



MODERN PROPHETS 283 

a more perfect and luminous spirituality than any which 
the sons of God have yet known. 

Sure as Thy truth shall last, 

To Zion shall be given 
The brightest glories earth can yield, 

And brighter bliss of heaven. 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 



*8S 



"For lo, the days are hastening on, 

By prophet bards foretold, 
When with the ever-circling years 

Comes round the age of gold; 
When peace shall over all the earth 

Its ancient splendors fling, 
And the whole world give back the song 

Which now the angels sing." 

"This fine old world of ours is but a child, 
Still in its go-cart." 

. . . through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. 

— Tennyson. 

The tendency of the long past has been toward diversity, that of the 
longer future will be toward oneness. . . . Thus conditions which for 
thousands of years tended to diversity have now been superseded by 
conditions which tend to oneness. It should be observed, further, that 
the new movement is much more rapid than the old one. Many of the 
differences which separate men required centuries for their perceptible 
development. But now every year marks long strides in the tendency 
to subordinate differences, to emphasize resemblances, to sink the small 
in the great, and to merge the many in the one. . . . The race has now crossed 
the great divide of human history, and numberless streams of tendency 
are all unconsciously moving toward the oneness of the great future. 
— Dr. Josiah Strong. 

High above our confusion and unrest, yet near to each human heart 
and willing to enter in, stands He to whom the thought and feeling of 
mankind turns with the same instinctive fidelity with which the needle 
seeks the pole — the changeless Christ. Restate our doctrines as we 
may, reconstruct our theologies as we will, this age, like every age, be- 
holds in him the Way to God, the Truth of God, the Life of God lived 
out among men; this age, like every age, has heard and responded to his 
call, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will 
give you rest"; this age, like every age, finds access to the Father through 
the Son. These things no criticism can shake, these certainties no phil- 
osophy disprove, these facts no science dissolve away. He is the religion 
which he taught, and while the race of man endures men will turn to the 
crucified Son of man, not with a grudging "Thou hast conquered, O 
Galilean!" but with the joyful, grateful cry, "My Lord, and my God!" 
— Dr. Warschauer. 



286 



CHAPTER XV 
PROPHETIC VISTAS 

Dr. D. S. Cairns, in his Christianity in the Modern 
World, in the line of a very able discussion says: "The 
crying need of our own age in the industrial sphere is 
the deepening and diffusion of the sense of the Common 
Good." This sentence holds in itself a whole gospel 
of industrial reconstruction, of social regeneration. The 
supreme task of a Christian civilization is to secure the 
enthronement in human thought of the spirit of brother- 
hood rather than of dissension, of the cooperative rather 
than the competitive motive. 

"The new social order demands a new type of man. 
The old motives of personal gain must give place to 
motives of collective enrichment. The ambition to get 
on must be lost in the nobler ideal to help on. Instead 
of competition there must be cooperation. Private ad- 
vancement is to have as its substitute the desire to 
render public service. In the coming time the individual 
will realize collective responsibility and will bear his 
part of the obligation of contributing of his strength to 
the support of the weak." 1 This ideal is one obviously 
far from present realization. The industrial world to-day 
is divided into hostile camps, and is conducted under 
policies which develop much class hatred. So of the 
social world. Between its various classes there yawn 

» J. C. Carlile. 

287 



288 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

at present unbridged chasms of distinction and of caste. 

But in the light of all history nothing can be clearer 
than that the wounds of society cannot be healed, that 
the interests of humanity can never be best served, by 
the continuance of the warring industrial and social 
policies which now so largely prevail. These policies 
must be uprooted and displaced before any vision of 
millennial peace and prosperity can have realization. 

Do existing facts give any assurance of the new Chris- 
tian age, the glory of which has filled the vision of our 
prophets? Or is the vision itself only an iridescent and 
deceitful dream? We must not be misled by the rhetoric 
of a groundless optimism. The problems of humanity 
are enormous, pressing, and grave beyond measurement. 
The great problems which confront our present-day 
Christianity are not simply those which arise from the 
social, industrial, and civic conditions of civilization. 
These in themselves are both momentous and baffling. 
But the supreme problems of the present day are world- 
problems, and these in the very near future will accent- 
uate themselves in a measure that could not have been 
dreamed of even as late as the closing years of the last 
century. 

The peoples of the Orient, which to Western civiliza- 
tions, until very recently, have seemed as in a sleep, 
are now fully awaking. Their aeonic sleep is broken. 
Their waking is ominous for all mankind. They are 
now in social and political ferment. Japan has already 
asserted herself as one of the most alert, inventive, and 
progressive forces in a world-civilization. China is 
breaking with all the precedents of her immovable past. 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 289 

For the shaping of her new ideals she is inviting the 
constructive aid of Western Christian education, science, 
and government. What is true of China is but typical 
of what is going on among the vast populations of the 
East. The interests of merchandise and the swiftness 
and perfection of modern transportation are binding us 
in ever-closer relations to all these peoples. Only a 
little time since, and the world's foremost statesmen 
were declaring that the Orient and the Occident were 
separated from each other by chasms which could never 
be bridged. The chasms have already been bridged. 
The interests of Orient and Occident are vitally and 
increasingly intermingling. They can never more be put 
asunder. 

The Western civilizations have undertaken to erect 
some fences against the invasion of Oriental popula- 
tions. There may be both a measure of wisdom and 
justification in such attempts. But it is not necessary 
to characterize their ultimate futility. The Oriental 
peoples will touch us to the vitals. They will adopt 
both our learning and our methods. They will become 
our competitors, perhaps overwhelmingly so, in the 
mercantile and industrial markets of the world. As by 
an unalterable edict of Almightiness, the East and the 
West must henceforth live together either in a spirit 
of large and cooperative service for mankind, or else 
in a spirit of mutual and racial hostility destructive of 
the world's peace, prosperity, and righteousness, an atti- 
tude which would mean an indefinite postponement of 
all the brighter hopes of humanity. Which shall it be? 

But to get Christianly closer to the whole question, 



2 9 o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

the new relations call for an entire transformation of 
our racial feelings. The spirit of race-alienations, of 
caste-feeling and separation, has been one of the things 
most rife in human history. If we are to deal with this 
historic situation in a sense that shall be fully Christian, 
then these racial lines of separation must be demolished. 
In Saint Paul's ideal Christian community he saw Greek 
and Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free blended 
in the dignities and fellowships of a common citizenship. 
If Saint Paul could so far forget his national and in- 
herited prejudices as to indorse this view of a Christian 
democracy, then his vision for us is one for immensely 
larger application. Our contacts must be with the 
entire geographical world, and with all of its diverse 
races. But if all these peoples are the children of God, 
all the subjects of a divine redemption in Jesus Christ, 
then we must relate ourselves to them all in the spirit 
of the common kinship of God's family. Are we, the 
heirs of a Christian civilization, the bearers of the Chris- 
tian name, large enough, Christlike enough, to enter 
loyally into these constructions? 

In the foregoing reflections, there has been at least 
suggested something of the largeness and complexity 
of world-problems, problems not merely impending, but 
before which the Christian world even now stands face 
to face. Is Christianity itself large enough, divine 
enough, to deal successfully, adequately with the incom- 
prehensible difficulties of these world-conditions? What- 
ever answer such a question may elicit, it is not amiss 
to take a passing refuge in a mere negative reflection. 
Civilization is old enough to have tried out many 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 291 

experiments. It has always been burdened with ills, 
crippled by limitations, and has incurred many dis- 
astrous failures. In all its history there has never 
been wanting a philosophy, a theory of government, 
or some kind of panacea which has been offered as a 
cure-all for its ills. 

All experiments with such remedies have been tried, 
and have failed. None of them, nor all of them to- 
gether, have proven equal to producing an ideal civiliza- 
tion. Christianity, upon the other hand, wherever tried, 
has never failed. It has been tested by innumerable 
individuals, and has been proven fully equal to their 
deepest moral and spiritual needs, both in the toils of 
life and in the pains of death. It has been largely tested 
in many provinces of human society, and always only 
with exalting and ennobling results yielded in just the 
measure in which its conditions have been fairly tried. 
In all the world to-day there is no sane adherent of 
Christianity who does not believe in its entire sufficiency, 
if its principles may be fairly accepted, to meet the 
social and moral needs of all mankind. It would seem, 
then, just now, while the world, like a ship preciously 
freighted and full-sailed, is crowding toward some new 
coast, that Christianity is the only pilot which may 
be confidently trusted to take charge of its destiny. 

Casting our eyes about the horizon what signs may 
we discern of the promise and progress of Christian 
supremacy? 

I 

The world of capital carries in itself both the most 
promising and resisting conditions of moral progress. 



2 9 2 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

In so far as this world is governed by a selfish and un- 
scrupulous spirit, it is a world most discouraging to 
Christian hopes, most heartless in its injustices, most 
despotic in its power for evil. But, on the other hand, 
it does not admit of denial that the capitalistic world 
of the present is increasingly impelled by a spirit of 
philanthropy. I do not undertake here to discuss pro 
or con the moral quality of the processes by which given 
capitalists may have acquired their phenomenal fortunes. 
Not that this question is not in itself one of very in- 
trinsic importance. My purpose now, however, is simply 
and briefly to review some general features in the world 
of present-day philanthropy. 

And, first, it may be truthfully said, that in the matter 
of money for humane causes, the entire past has never 
produced a period which for magnificent giving has 
anywhere nearly approached the present time. In the 
year last closed, 19 13, the aggregate large gifts by cit- 
izens of the United States amounted to more than $302,- 
000,000. In this splendid aggregate no gift for less than 
$10,000 is included. If we could command all the gifts 
under sums of $10,000 each, these would also make a 
noble aggregate. Last year there was given outright "to 
American colleges alone the sum of $32,550,000. It is 
of interest to note that throughout the country there are 
not less than 5,397 institutions of a purely benevolent 
character, representing combined costs in property and 
endowments of hundreds of millions of dollars. These 
institutions are devoted to the care of unfortunate and 
orphaned children, of indigent adults, of the blind and 
deaf, and for purposes of hospitals and dispensaries. 






PROPHETIC VISTAS 293 

We can little measure the significance of amounts 
running up into these high figures. They tell an eloquent 
story. They stand not only for an unmeasured amount 
of good, of humane service achieved, but they give 
evidence of a growing conviction among men favored 
with large capital of personal responsibility for its moral 
uses. More than this, they tell the story of a genuine 
pleasure often experienced by men of wealth in bestow- 
ing benefactions that meet public needs. For our present 
purpose it matters little who the particular donors may 
be. The consecration of so large sums of private money 
to public and philanthropic uses represents a pervasive 
and growing disposition on the part of capital to make 
itself a servant of the common good. So far as capital 
is concerned, this example goes far toward lifting the 
donor into a special moral class. At any rate, it secures 
for him an approvable distinction as compared with 
the capitalist who selfishly gathers, hoards, and invests 
his wealth without reference to the claims upon him 
of humanity. 

The feature of chief significance is that the call for 
service, a Christian call, which is so distinctively and 
increasingly voiced in this age, is being heard and heeded 
at the seats of capital. This is of great import. This 
is a capitalistic age. Capital is a chief power in all 
the great enterprises. It builds our cities, our railroads, 
our steamships, and supports all productive industries. 
Its investments are making all natural forces tributary 
to our material civilization, harnessing the very Niagaras 
for its uses. It is but little wonder that the age has 
been drunken with the very power of capital. But 



294 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

the wielders of this great power must not be drunken 
men. They of all men need to be men of sobriety, of 
self-control, of conscientiousness, fused through and 
through with a sense of high responsibility. They 
need to be men of vision, sun-crowned men. 

Just recognition should be gratefully given for such 
measure of capital as has been consecrated to the com- 
mon good. The story of such consecration furnishes 
one of the most inspiring chapters in the moral history 
of the race. But thus far only the outer fringes on the 
royal robe of capital have been touched for distinctively 
benevolent and moral ends. In overwhelming propor- 
tion capital has thus far sought its investment in ma- 
terial and selfish schemes. I seek neither to displace 
nor to underestimate both the legitimacy and the ne- 
cessity of large investments of capital in purely business 
enterprises. Such enterprises rightfully absorb the great 
body of capitalistic investments. Business in itself may 
be just as legitimate, just as much a divine calling, as 
the preaching of the gospel. Indeed, what we need to 
remember, what the business man may not forget, is 
that the business man is just as morally responsible for 
the use of his powers as is the minister of the gospel. 
No implication is to be made against either the invest- 
ment of human skill and energy or of capital in legit- 
imate business. But investments are made for profits. 
And when profits exceed all demands of private business, 
and of private needs, then in such surplus there is a 
fund which should be sacredly devoted to moral and 
philanthropic purposes. 

There is a voice in the age, a spirit stirring its very 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 295 

atmospheres, which is calling upon capital in general to 
lift its motives to higher levels, to make great new moral 
departures. The world needs a generation of capitalists 
who will be dominated by the conviction that they are 
simply stewards for the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and 
that it is their chief obligation to bring their gains as 
endowments for the moral uses of this kingdom. It 
is only under such a motive that wealth can come to its 
real nobility. 

As much as we may admire the skill and power of 
one who forces nature to lay its treasures in his hand, 
we can see nothing admirable in the selfish and sordid 
uses by this same man of such treasures. The capital- 
istic motive which prompts to the gaining of wealth 
only that it may increase the personal power of its pos- 
sessor, only that it may feed his greeds, gratify his pride, 
minister to his luxuries, and swell his selfish aggrandize- 
ment is not admirable. On a just moral scale there are 
few beings less approvable, though he clothe himself 
in purple and fine linen and fare sumptuously every 
day, than the man who is the selfish and sordid mo- 
nopolizer of wealth. On the other hand, there is no 
nobler type of man than he who, having wealth, has 
acquired both the art and the delight of so using it as 
to make it in the highest sense a ministry of moral 
service. 

And why should not wealth find its highest satisfac- 
tions in responding to the bugle call of the age for such 
moral service? By the courtesy of Professor George A. 
Coe, of Union Theological Seminary, I am in possession 
of the following typical and highly suggestive facts. I 



2 9 6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

present these facts in Professor Coe's own language as 
follows : 

In the spring of 191 1 Norman Thomas, of our graduating class, was 
elected by the faculty to our traveling Fellowship, which provides for 
two years of foreign study. The Fellowship is awarded each year to 
the man who has stood highest in the graduating class during his whole 
three years' course. Mr. Thomas was easily first. He is indeed a man 
of extraordinary ability, such ability as would bring him success, say, 
in a professorship. But he declined the Fellowship on the ground that 
he desired to engage in work among the Italian immigrants in New York 
city. He is now a supervisor of the Italian churches on the East Side 
for the Presbyterian Home Mission Board. 

In 19 1 2 we elected similarly Mr. Kenneth Miller; but he declined the 
Fellowship on the ground that he desired to enter the work among the 
immigrants in this country. We then turned to the next man in the 
class of 19 12, Mr. Joel Hayden. After some consideration, Mr. Hayden 
also declined, and on the same ground. Thereupon, the Presbyterian 
Home Missionary Society sent both these men abroad for one year to 
study certain of the European peoples, from whom immigrants are now 
coming. Miller worked in Bohemia, and Hayden worked in Poland. 
After a year both of them could speak and preach in the language of 
the country. Miller is now in New York city, in the employ of the Pres- 
byterian Home Mission Board, as an assistant in the Bohemian work; 
and Hayden is in Baltimore in similar work among the Poles. 

A further set of facts that will interest you concerns the enthusiasm 
for foreign missions that now prevails among our students, and has pre- 
vailed, I think, for years. In one of our recent years, I think it was 191 1, 
twenty-five per cent of a large graduating class was already pledged 
for foreign mission work before graduation day came. Every year we 
send a large delegation, generally of strong men, into mission work. In 
fact, I am not seldom embarrassed in my efforts to get men into religious 
education work in this country by discovering that the strong man upon 
whom I have fixed my mind had decided to go into the foreign field. An 
amusing evidence of this interest occurred last year. Some of the stu- 
dents complained that the foreign work was talked about so much that 
the home work didn't get its due! 

A still further item of the same kind concerns the rural work. Several 
of our men — I should say half a dozen — have been engaged already in 
the rural survey work during vacation. Some of them have now entered 
permanently upon one or another form of rural work as a life calling; 
and there is so much interest in this problem that there is every reason 
to expect that a good many of our men will tackle this, which is perhaps 
the hardest of all our problems. 






PROPHETIC VISTAS 297 

In addition to the foregoing, there has come to my 
attention almost at the time of this writing, the case 
of a young preacher, himself a theological graduate, 
highly cultured, able, exceptionally attractive in his 
personality, who asks of his superintendent that he may 
be sent to one of the weakest mission churches in New 
York city. 

What do these instances indicate? This: these young 
men have been dwelling in sensitive moral atmospheres. 
They have caught a vision of the age. They have heard 
Christ's call to service. Their hearts have already been 
touched with the joy of sacrifice. In the splendid light 
of their inspirations they have been able to translate 
into their own convictions, choices, and affections the 
seemingly most difficult tasks, as at once the most divine, 
the most attractive, and the most rewarding. 

These young men are disciples from the schools of 
our modern prophets. They are the knightly spirits of 
a new age. In character, in culture, in social attractive- 
ness they are the peers of the most favored sons of wealth. 
Their moral purposes and consecrations are inspired by 
the loftiest motives. Their moral insight has not mis- 
led them. They are making no mistake in their choices. 
Providence is thrusting them into the vanguard of great 
moral movements. Is there any reason why the ranks 
of wealth should not hear the same call of the age, be 
stirred by the same moral enthusiasms, and bring their 
tremendous reenf orcements to the same work ? The man 
of wealth holds in his hands great potentialities of ser- 
vice. It were for such a man a tragic missing of the 
highest nobility and joy of life if he were so obsessed 



2 9 8 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

by the demon of greed, avarice, and selfishness as to 
be shut away from fellowship with the knightly guild 
of men who have learned that life's divinest rewards 
rest alone with those who have most entered the secret 
of Christlike service. 

The ideal minister must be socially refined, mentally 
cultured, spiritually inspirational, but he is expected by 
all, and justly so, to be a ministering servant to the 
needs of the humblest and the poorest in his parish. 
The ideal physician must be learned and skilled in his 
profession, yet it is one of the very ideals of his pro- 
fession that he must as fully and as conscientiously 
devote his skill to the care of the sick in the homes of 
the poor, or even among convicts in prison, as in the 
homes of privilege. The ideal teacher must be both 
learned, skillful and gifted, yet the teacher must give 
of his or her best for the service of all. The teacher 
who would slight or neglect the most mentally backward 
or stupidest child in the school would be justly counted 
unworthy a place in the teaching profession. These are 
a few illustrations of callings, and many others could 
be added, which in themselves demand the highest type 
of character, yet the incumbents of which are expected 
to give themselves to a life of altruistic service. 

Why should not the capitalist who employs a thousand 
men consider these as his providential opportunity, a 
special call to him for Christlike service? Is there any 
reason why a man wielding the power of wealth should 
feel free to excuse himself from rendering to his age the 
full moral service implicit in that wealth? Measured in 
the clear light of most sane and sensitive judgment, 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 299 

the rich man who fails to render such service, by the 
very fact of such failure assigns himself a most un- 
enviable moral rank. The darkness of his failure is in 
inverse ratio to the greatness of his neglected oppor- 
tunity. Is there any reason why, because a man is 
wealthy, he should excuse himself from the fellowship 
of consecrations demanded by the highest social and 
moral enthusiasms of the age? Too many rich men 
have tried to live selfishly, only to discover too late that 
their selfishness has been utterly unrewarding. Too 
many such have given themselves to the revel of luxury, 
only to awaken in paralysis and helplessness to the dis- 
covery that the bread and wine of their pleasure have 
turned to ashes and bitterness. The man of utterly 
selfish wealth, though he be not physically intemperate, 
is likely to awaken to the fact that the dream of his 
avarice has brought him no better reward than the 
labors of Sisyphus. 

Dickens's Christmas story of Scrooge is psychologically 
true to life. He began early to worship a golden idol. 
The noble aspirations of his youth fell off one by one. 
until the master-passion, gain, had engrossed him. Into 
his features were set hard and rigid lines, and upon his 
face grew the signs of care and avarice. He lived to a 
hard, grasping, and merciless old age. He was rich. 
His "name was good upon 'change for anything he chose 
to put his hand to." But he was oblivious both of the 
joys and sorrows of others. For him the cheery season 
of Christmas had no charm. He considered that for 
his clerk to take a Christmas holiday was like "pick- 
ing a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December." 



3 oo CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

"If I could work my will," he said, indignantly, "every 
idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his 
lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried 
with a stake of holly through his heart. He should." 

His old age was loveless, lonely, and joyless. He was 
a miser, neither giving to the world, nor receiving from 
it, any ministry of blessedness. There is many a man, 
rich and loveless, who can never be called back from 
the bondage of his greed unless by some ghostly miracle, 
as in the case of Scrooge. 

This subject cannot be justly discussed without large 
emphasis of the many princely examples which the age 
furnishes of chivalrous use of wealth. The consecration 
of wealth to the common good will be one of the great 
passions begotten by the new age. The good of, the 
love of, the joy of giving private wealth for philan- 
thropic ends will in increasing measure substitute and 
exorcise grosser and selfish motives in the uses of cap- 
ital. Happily for the age, happily for the auspices of 
the Kingdom, signs multiply that a new moral knight- 
hood is being increasingly recruited from the sons of 
wealth. My faith is that one of the chief distinguishing 
marks of the twentieth century will be in the new and 
vast consecrations of wealth for the reenforcements of 
Christ's kingdom. A new spirit is coming into the 
world's thinking, a new light is resting upon human 
needs and obligations, new ideals are making resistless 
appeal to the rich and strong for service. In response 
to the new spirit, the new light, the new ideals, wealth 
will find its sphere of service and of satisfaction as never 
before. 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 301 

The prophecy has gone forth, the nurture is in the 
atmosphere, and the signs are multiplying that already 
we have entered upon an age which is to be morally 
resplendent, and not among the least of forces con- 
tributing to its glory will be the ministry of consecrated 

wealth. 

II 

The deeper moral significance of the labor movement 
has been much obscured by objectionable features which 
have been superficial to the movement itself. Labor has 
fundamentally organized itself for the purpose, first, of 
protection against the unjust encroachments of selfish 
capital, and, second, for the purpose of mutual aid and 
benevolence among its own members. Nothing could 
be more legitimate, nothing more approvable in itself, 
than each of these purposes. Labor has suffered from 
the frequent misfortune of unworthy leadership. It has 
often lacked in discernment of the better courses to be 
pursued. Its history has been too often characterized 
by sporadical outbreaks of mob rule and violence in 
which outlawry and the spirit of ruthless assassination 
have played a conspicuous role. 

These occasional and quite exceptional phenomena have 
created in the thoughtful public mind a wide prejudice 
against the spirit of organized labor. By so much 
labor has suffered a serious injustice at the hands of 
its own representatives. If, however, we inquire more 
closely into underlying causes, it must appear that labor 
cannot be justly charged with greater criminality than 
capital itself. It is altogether probable that if capital 
had always dealt equitably, there would never have 



3 o2 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

arisen the labor organization. There would have been 
no necessity for it. 

That capital and labor to-day are pitted against each 
other in alien camps is not without deep causes. The 
recriminations of labor against capital, however bitter, 
are, in the last analysis, only the practices by labor of 
lessons taught by capital itself. Capital has shown 
itself hard, grasping, conscienceless, despotic. Labor, 
helpless in its presence, has been forced in innumerable 
instances to the wall. Capital has too often exacted 
from the weak the largest service for the smallest wage. 
Without regard to brotherhood, rights, the comforts, the 
health, or even the lives of workers, capital has often 
ground the poor under the heel of merciless power. 
It is in a spirit thus begotten that labor has turned upon 
capital. It is simply, in its bad moods, striking as it 
has itself been struck. In the above paragraph I am 
speaking especially of the demerits of capital. But 
labor has too often earned for itself the severest censure. 
When well paid and well treated it has often given slip- 
shod work, careless and unprofitable service, and has 
done the least work possible for the largest wages that 
could be gotten. Labor, in the highest interests of 
the worker, should be performed in a loyal spirit. A 
man's sphere of labor is his training school of character. 
The man who works in the spirit of a time server, who 
seeks only the day's wage regardless as to whether he 
has rendered an equivalent value, is living the life of 
a cheat, is so lending himself to processes of essential 
dishonesty as to make it impossible for him under such 
motives to develop an intrinsically noble and trust- 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 303 

worthy character. Labor, however humble in itself, if 
loyally and dutifully performed, is a service in the in- 
terests of righteousness. 

In the moral merits of the conflict capital has no 
advantage over labor. Capital is better liveried, better 
fed, is more self-sufficient, and wears externally a better 
polish; but its spirit has been just as bitter and relent- 
less as that of labor. On the other hand, the moral 
advantages, as inhering in the causes of the conflict, 
are with labor. Capital for the most part has waged 
a selfish warfare. Labor may have been selfish, but, 
on the whole, it has fought for its rights. In any event, 
mingled with its selfishness has been a large spirit of 
altruism. Its scheme, however imperfectly realized, 
and however limited of application, has been one of 
a labor brotherhood, and its spirit one of mutual help- 
fulness. 

Organized labor has never en masse committed itself 
to any atheistic policy. While it has been distrustful 
of the Church because of the judgment, whether true 
or false, that the Church is too much dominated by 
capitalistic influence, it has, as a rule, borne itself in 
reverential attitude toward Jesus Christ. Organized labor 
fails of many things greatly to be desired, but at its 
heart it carries ideals which illuminated and widened 
would mark it as having close kinship with the kingdom 
of heaven. In a day of more equitable industrial con- 
ditions, of more pronounced brotherhood, a day sure 
to come, the laboring world will be subjects of that 
kingdom whose Lord was once the Carpenter of Naza- 
reth. 



3o 4 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

III 

A prophetic word, a word which carries in itself great 
promise and potency for the future, is "cooperation." 
Capitalism, at least capitalism in its present exaggerated 
form, is but a passing phase in civilization. There are 
most potent reasons why it should be doomed. In its 
present concentrated form, and with its accelerating 
aggressiveness, it stands as a menace to the very life 
of the republic. With mailed front, and with a rapacity 
that brooks no checks, its recent leading has been straight 
in the direction of plutocracy. With new shibboleths 
and under new forms it threatens the displacement of 
democratic equality by a capitalistic feudalism. 

The proposition comes too late in history for such a 
regression in civilization. Plutocracy, when reduced to 
its last term, is a foe to human liberty, mimical to democ- 
racy, and can be accorded no place under the standards 
of highest Christian enlightenment. Its aggressions have 
awakened the deepest animosities of the present age. 
Only the blind can fail to see this. The greatest menace 
of our present civilization is that which arises from 
the warfare between the oligarchy of wealth and the 
discontented democracy of production. This is a war- 
fare which, if its causes are not removed, threatens the 
very upheaval of society, only on a more terrific and 
bloody scale, as in the French Revolution. 

In these days the feeling is rapidly growing that the 
present order is not, and cannot be, a finality. The 
conviction is gaining with capitalists, as well as with 
all others, that in the very fundamental conditions of 
business there should be provision, and under limits 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 305 

which cannot be finally violated by either capitalistic 
or laboristic aggression, for a more equitable distribu- 
tion of opportunities among men. In the present situa- 
tion both capital and organized labor are resting in false, 
unjust, and most injurious assumptions. Capital insists 
that it has an absolute right to administer its resources 
as it will. This is a wholesale begging of a great moral 
question. Most of the factors which capital monopolizes 
spring from natural resources. God, the common Father 
of all men, is the author of all natural wealth. His 
children alike have their inalienable rights in such wealth. 
In the Hebrew theocracy it was fundamental that the 
land, the source of common support, the real source 
of all wealth, belonged to the people. And that this 
common right of use might never be annulled, it was 
provided that once in so often there should be a redis- 
tribution of land. 

It was the capitalistic violation of this law, a viola- 
tion which led to the oppression of the poor, which in- 
spired the prophets to utter their fierce philippics of 
denunciation against the luxurious rich. Precisely the 
same conditions, only on a vastly exaggerated scale, 
which drew from the prophets their fiery condemnations, 
exist in the capitalistic world of to-day. At its heart 
the boasted absolute ownership of capital is an atheism. 
What becomes of God's right and of the rights of all 
God's children in God's own world? 

On the other hand, labor, especially as expressed in 
the theories of Socialism, makes the hugely false claim 
to being the producer of all values. In its widest and 
most legitimate application, it comes near being true 



3 o6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

that labor is the developer of all mercantile values. 
But in its more limited application, as defined by the 
representatives of organized labor, it is very far from 
true that labor is the exclusive producer of values. Brain 
has entered fully as largely as brawn into the develop- 
ment of mercantile values. The inventor who mul- 
tiplies the working power of man a hundredfold has by 
his single invention indefinitely multiplied the possi- 
bilities of labor. Is he not a producer? And is he not 
entitled to special reward for his benefaction? 

Then, as an essential factor in production is capital 
itself. Capital, as directed by somebody, furnishes the 
appliances and the methods without which the hands 
of a thousand laborers would be empty and useless. 
Surely, capital, however owned, is a prime necessity to 
production. The theory, then, that "labor" is the sole 
producer of values is fundamentally and viciously wrong. 
Before capital and labor can meet together on the planes 
of harmony it is an absolute necessity that both shall 
abandon their false fortifications. 

It may be frankly admitted that the conditions of 
reconciliation between the two forces are not yet fully 
developed. This is not strange. All good things do 
not come with cyclonic speed. The most valuable 
adjustments governing human relations are evolutionary 
in their development. But, given the premises of God 
and the world, of divine Sonship and the growing sense 
of human brotherhood, and there is no room for despair 
as to the ultimate advent of right human adjustments. 

The highest ideals now in sight would seem to call 
for a common basis of interest between capital and 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 307 

labor in their mutual products. This ideal can be 
realized only under some philosophy of cooperation. A 
cooperative atmosphere is one favorable to brotherhood. 
It welds sentiment and effort in a common interest. 
It is this spirit which holds together and makes effective 
the great corporations. In them cooperation has shown 
its power to develop the most gigantic industries known 
to history. The objection to this kind of cooperation 
is that it is of the class order. While it deals with in- 
terests which affect the common welfare, it subsidizes 
for its own ends all the productive agencies; it finally 
turns the revenues earned, however immense, into the 
pockets of the few. The great masses are practically 
shut away from the benefits of such cooperation. The 
imperative need is for the creation of cooperative methods 
broad enough to include all producers. 

The present history of cooperative developments is 
not without great significance and promise. This move- 
ment has more largely characterized England, and the 
nations of Europe than the United States. In the United 
Kingdom of Great Britain the cooperative movement 
includes about 3,000,000 people. Its retail stores sell 
annually $400,000,000 of goods, while $130,000,000 of 
goods are created in its manufacturing establishments. 1 
The governing rule of this union is that profits earned 
shall be equitably divided between capitalist, workers, 
and purchasers. "Germany in 1908 had 24,652 co- 
operative societies, with 3,658,437 members. Denmark, 
with a population of only 2,500,000, had about 1,200 
retail stores, with 200,000 members, and has developed 

1 Aneurin Williams, Co-partnership and Profit-Sharing, p. 212. 



3 o8 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

productive cooperation as no other country has. Basle, 
with 125,000 inhabitants, had 28,000 cooperative buyers. 
Since 1908 these figures have grown very much." 1 This 
cooperative movement is rapidly spreading in France 
and, indeed, throughout Europe. 

The principle is so far established as to be beyond 
experimental stages. Its capacity for the widest appli- 
cation to world-business may in many and largely im- 
portant features still await development. But of the 
essential justice and sanity of the principle there seems 
little room for doubt. Indeed, many important applica- 
tions of the cooperative principle have long had practical 
approval. Our public highways, school systems, gas 
and waterworks, the postal systems, are illustrative of 
a common service for the benefit of which the people 
cheerfully cooperate in the payment of taxes. The 
number of public-service appliances which might serve 
common interests and be cooperatively supported by 
the community seems susceptible of great enlargement. 

It is evident that wherever this principle may be 
adopted in the business world it will prove unifying 
and not competitive; it will draw men together in com- 
mon interests. It will awaken in all the spirit of a 
common partnership. It will create around itself an 
atmosphere of fidelity, of industry and thrift. Its very 
ideals will put to shame the spirit of shirking and of 
time-serving — qualities which are now a pervasive blight 
in the laboring world. Above all, it is a principle in 
sublime harmony with the ideals of Jesus Christ. In 
its ampleness there is room for the rich and the poor to 

1 Rauschenbusch, Christianizing the Social Order, p. 385. 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 309 

meet together in the genuine feeling that the Lord is 
the Maker of them all. Let the animosities which now 
prevail between capital and labor be once removed, 
and the largest door for the realization of the divine 
brotherhood of man is wide open. Happily, the signs 
multiply that the moral education of the age is setting 
in this direction. 

IV 

Kindred to the spirit of cooperation which must wed 
capital and labor in the bonds of common interests, 
and of not less significance, is the spirit of federation 
which is to-day leaguing the Protestant denominations 
into the unity of a common Christian mission. We 
have seen how signally this spirit is asserting itself in 
the interrelations of the great missionary boards. One 
of the most signal services of missions to the home 
churches is the enforcement upon the attention of these 
churches of the supreme importance of Christian unity. 
The missionary workers scattered among the wide, 
dense, and darkened paganisms are filled with a heart- 
hunger for brotherly fellowship. Their very sense of 
isolation prompts them to support each other in the 
work and purposes for which they stand in common. 
A sense of the vast and overwhelming needs of the world, 
of their own insufficiency in the presence of these needs, 
forces upon these workers both the fitness and necessity 
of entering into a holy leagueship with all who in the 
midst of pagan cults are truly seeking to exalt the name 
of Christ. In presence of countless heathen whose 
supreme need is to know Jesus Christ, there comes to 
these workers a sense of the essential pettiness of the 



310 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

differing views which too often and too long, in the 
homeland, have separated the denominations. 

Not in the modern ages has there been witnessed so 
noble an expression in the interests of Christian unity 
as that given in the recent World's Missionary Con- 
ference at Edinburgh. In this Conference was brought 
together a great interdenominational body with the 
single purpose of devising cooperative methods for Chris- 
tianizing the heathen world. The conference was com- 
posed of exceptionally able and experienced men who 
in a very inclusive way represented the entire mission 
work of the Christian world. The great emphasis put 
upon the necessity of cooperative Christian effort was 
such as powerfully to impress all that the present is 
no time for the wasting of Christian energies in fruit- 
less theological and ecclesiastical controversies. 

The real spirit of Christianity, the Christianity of 
Christ, the spirit of its teaching, consecration, and 
sacrifice, is nowhere more perfectly exemplified than 
among missionary workers. A concerted and supreme 
call of these workers is a summons to the home churches 
to forget their differences and to unite their forces for 
the salvation of the world. 

The spirit of federation is working like a leaven among 
the home mission boards of our own country. Less 
than three years ago the Home Missions Council in- 
augurated the "Neglected Fields Survey." Just recently 
under the united auspices of the home boards a series 
of two-days conferences, to which were invited all the 
home mission leaders in every State visited, were held 
in the two Dakotas, Montana, Oregon, Utah, and 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 311 

Colorado. In these conferences two points were sought, 
namely, first: "To give State leaders an insight into 
the large relations and latest developments of the tasks 
in which they share; and, second, to press home the 
absolute importance of attacking the home mission prob- 
lem in the spirit and by the methods of close interdenom- 
inational cooperation." The prompt and hearty response 
given at all these conferences to the latter proposition 
was such as to give evidence that in all these States 
the "old era of church competition is passing away." 

The new spirit of federation is one of largest prophecy 
for Christianity. It is bringing to the churches them- 
selves a quickening revelation of their vital and essential 
unity. It is greatly emphasizing the lesson that for 
the common tasks of Christian work denominational 
differences need not stand in the way of cooperative 
effort. It is not clear that the obliteration of denom- 
inational lines would best serve the interests of Chris- 
tianity. It is increasingly clear that denominations as 
such may be so imbued with the larger mission of the 
Kingdom, so possessed and inspired with the love of 
Christ, as to prompt them to work together in a sublime 
unity for the redemption of the world. It is the spirit 
of such a unity which more than ever before is moving 
upon the heart of the modern Church. The demand 
in many fields for efficient administration of Christian 
work, economic necessities, such division of effort as 
promises most effective results with least waste of power 
— these, and many kindred considerations, are all pro- 
motive of a cooperative purpose and effort in Christian 
service. Instead of moving out on divergent lines of 



312 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

sectarianism, the federative spirit is turning the faces of 
the denominations in common toward Christ, and in this 
vision they are increasingly discovering that the work 
which he would have done is one which makes an equal 
call upon all alike. In this spirit Protestantism is find- 
ing its true self, is discovering that larger unity and 
broader catholicity in the strength and coordinations of 
which it will move out upon new and enlarged missions of 
moral conquest. 

V 
In a previous chapter there has been presented some 
survey of modern missions. But the significance of 
missions in their relation to the present and immediate 
future progress of Christ's kingdom in the earth is an 
immeasurable quantity. Proceeding from missions, as 
from a creative source, innumerable and unassessable 
beneficent influences are moving to the very heart of 
heathen society. No one can measure the indirect 
moral values resulting from the spiritual truth as both 
preached and illustrated in this great work. In Dr. 
W. F. Oldham's admirable lecture on the "Pros and 
Cons of Missions" he says: 

The purer tenets of Christianity, its sublime ethical codes, its high 
spiritual vision, its teaching of justice and mercy, and its inculcation 
of the spirit of brotherhood and a fine philanthropy toward all the dis- 
tressed and sorrow-smitten in life have forcibly impressed the faiths it 
confronts in all lands; and every one of them has taken on a purer ethical 
character and is sounding a deeper religious note because of Christianity's 
presence. The very first effect is to exorcise the cruelties and grosser 
forms of lust and impurity, that through human weakness have become 
mixed with the teachings of the ethnic faith. A thousand immoralities 
and cruelties have fled from the public life of India and China, and are 
fleeing from the dark stretches of Africa, smitten by the invisible sword, 
by the aroused human spirit, awakened among all the people by the 
hearing of the higher law. . . . There is a positive cleansing of public opinion 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 313 

and an openly promulgated code of conduct hitherto unknown — a new 
valuation of man as man and of woman as a partner of man, his sharer 
in life's burdens and, with him, the crown of creation, and a new soft- 
ness and tenderness of feeling thrown around childhood. In a word, 
both in the public mind and in the homes of the people the presence of 
the Christian missionary and all that he stands for brings new ideas into 
the social order and a new atmosphere into the home. 1 

Christian missions present the boldest, the most com- 
prehensive, progressive, and prophetic moral program 
now operative in the world's history. No living seer 
can forecast the fruits to be realized from this program 
even while the present century is yet young. 

VI 

On the summit of the Andes, and on a line marking 
the boundary between Chile and Argentina, stands a 
colossal statue of Christ, and upon its pedestal are 
carved the words: "Sooner shall these mountains crum- 
ble into dust than that Chileans and Argentines break 
the peace, which at the feet of Christ, the Redeemer, 
they have sworn to maintain." 

On August 28, 1 9 13, there was dedicated, in the 
presence of a most distinguished company representing 
the great nations of the earth, one of the finest public 
buildings in the world— the "PALACE OF PEACE at 
THE HAGUE." Ten years earlier, Mr. Andrew 
Carnegie contributed for the establishment of this build- 
ing $1,500,000. Toward its final completion and embel- 
lishment nearly all the nations of Europe have made 
signal contributions. This building is dedicated as the 
home for the "Permanent Court of Arbitration for the 
Adjustment of International Disputes." 

1 India, Malaysia, and the Philippines. 



3 i4 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

The heroic statue of the Prince of Peace, standing 
high above the Andes, and the superb "Palace of Peace" 
at The Hague, are two significant symbols of great 
international movements in the interests of peace which 
more and more are commanding the thought of the 
modern world. Doubtless a prominent factor in enforc- 
ing this conception upon the world's thought is the 
inordinate and oppressive costliness of modern national 
armaments. The cost of an "armed neutrality" is so 
great as to threaten the bankruptcy of nations. 

Treasure by the billions — treasure which ought to find 
investment in sources of common prosperity, treasure 
adequate to endow all the universities, technical and art 
schools required by civilization, treasure ample to main- 
tain all the eleemosynary institutions, hospitals, asylums 
for the blind and unfortunate, homes for the aged and 
indigent — all this, by systems of national taxation, is 
being extorted from the sources of legitimate production, 
from the hands of toilers, for the purpose of maintaining 
the vastly unproductive, wasteful, destructive, and what 
some day will be sure to be ranked as barbarous, systems 
of world militarism. 

The burdens thus imposed are felt by all nations to be 
increasingly intolerable. Thus there is forced upon the 
judgment of sane rulers, and upon the collective thought 
of mankind, the unescapable necessity of bringing the 
nations together in such a compact of peace as will rid 
the world of the exhaustive and ruinous taxation of the 
present war-footing. 

The very economical necessities of civilization are thus 
become the stern schoolmaster to force the nations 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 315 

toward a compact of peace. Certain it is that a most 
phenomenal interest in the world's peace has become 
awakened in modern thought. In the last fifteen years 
considerably more than one hundred and fifty arbitration 
treaties have been made effective in the settlement of 
disputes as between nations. Peace societies in large 
numbers have been organized throughout Christendom. 

The Hague Court of Arbitration for the adjustment of 
international disputes, now participated in by forty-two 
nations, has become an established institution. Under 
its auspices there have already been assembled two great 
International Congresses, which, in the discussion of 
fundamental principles, have reached large agreements 
in the direction of general peace as between nations. It 
is planned that a Third International Congress shall 
meet at The Hague in the near future. 

"An International Peace Plan" as promulgated by 
President Wilson of the United States, up to October 11, 
19 13, had received the acceptance of twenty-nine coun- 
tries, with the probability that the signatures of many 
other nations would be added to the list. 

There is now in process, on both sides of the ocean, an 
enthusiastic celebration of a completed century of peace 
between the two great Anglo-Saxon nations — England 
and America. Thus: 

"Two Empires by the sea, 
Two nations great and free, 

One anthem raise, 
One race of ancient fame, 
One tongue, one faith we claim, 
One God whose glorious name 
We love and praise." 



3i6 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

The entire trend of international law, defining and 
guaranteeing the mutual rights of nations, is in the di- 
rection of universal and permanent peace. Modern con- 
ditions are rapidly bringing to realization the fact that 
the whole world is bound together by the ties of common 
mercantile, educational, and industrial interests. War is 
a relentless foe to these interests. The only philosophy 
which fits the needs of the growing modern world is that 
of brotherhood, and not of alienation and strife. 

Thus there has come into modern world thought, like 
the lift of a tidal wave, the recognized and imperative 
need for the inauguration of a reign of peace, not only as 
between nations, but as preparatory everywhere for the 
realization of a real brotherhood among men. This 
movement will be a growing leaven in the world's con- 
victions. It can be classed only as a movement of the 
Kingdom. It is a movement which will minister largely 
to the fulfillment of that prophecy of peace on earth and 
good will among men which uttered itself in the angelic 
song above the birth scene of Him who came into the 
world as the "PRINCE OF PEACE." 

VII 

If it is true, as is often said, that the philosophy of 
to-day will rule the faith of to-morrow, then, in the 
philosophical thinking of the present there are not a 
few auspicious promises for a regal spiritual future. 
In philosophy there is a marked reaction from the 
materialism of a generation ago. In present philosoph- 
ical thought may inhere a large preparation for the 
incoming of a new spiritual era. 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 317 

That recent philosophy has given large room in its 
discussions to, and that its own positions have been 
much influenced by, the spiritual claims of religion, 
cannot be denied. William James would hardly be 
claimed as an advocate of the orthodox Christian faith, 
but his pragmatic philosophy gives large justification to 
the claims of religious experience. One can hardly 
read Dr. Fairbairn's great work, The Philosophy of 
The Christian Religion, without concluding that he has 
not only given a masterful philosophical setting to the 
phenomena of Christianity, but that he has as well given 
to Christianity a most indubitable place as a divine 
and spiritual religion. Borden P. Bowne, while yet a 
very young man, came conspicuously to notice by his 
brilliant refutation of a materialistic philosophy. He 
holds secure historic rank with the great philosophers 
of the age. He was a foremost expounder of a theistic 
and spiritual view of the universe. Personally he found 
rest of mind and heart nowhere as in his faith in Jesus 
Christ. 

Among living philosophers Rudolf Eucken easily holds 
a first rank. He has searched history and the human 
soul with a profound insight. His philosophy is an 
insistence upon the rightful supremacy of the spiritual 
in the universe. The loftiest life, indeed the only true 
life, of man must come from the normal development 
of his spiritual nature. If Eucken had committed him- 
self more definitely to the Christian view of life, this, 
from a distinctive Christian standpoint, would have been 
more satisfactory. But his philosophy at center is not 
inharmonious with Christianity. No more withering ex- 



3 i8 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

posure of the insufficiency and unworthiness of the 
materialistic life, no more brilliant summons to find 
the higher life through spiritual emancipations, can be 
heard than voice themselves in Eucken's philosophy. 
In the world's thought it may be that such as Fair- 
bairn, Bowne, and Eucken are the philosophical fore- 
runners of a near-coming and transforming spiritual age. 
When we predict that Christianity is to become the 
universal and final religion, we must remember two 
facts: first, the continuous growth of the spiritual educa- 
tion of the race; second, the divine adaptiveness of 
Christianity to the growing knowledge and needs of 
mankind. The Christianity of to-day does not mean 
any literal conformity to a dogmatic code of morals as 
announced either in the second or the fifteenth cen- 
tury, or indeed at any time in the past. The prin- 
ciples announced by Jesus Christ are continually expand- 
ing themselves in adaptation to the world's new knowl- 
edge and necessitated thinking. Christian thought is 
continuously enriching itself by its appropriation and 
assimilation of new discoveries of truth. 

The nations and the ages have all and always been in 
possession of valuable truths, of ideas and moral ideals 
which did not originate in Palestine in the days of Christ. 
The infinite Spirit of Truth has touched the heart and 
the intellect of men in all ages and in all races. It is 
the glory of Christianity, indeed one of the most con- 
vincing tests of its divinity, that it vitally appropriates 
all true spiritual ideals, that it constantly enriches its own 
thought by the absorption into itself of all truth-values- 
Mr. Charles Henry Dickinson has recently published 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 319 

a brilliant and thought-provoking book, The Christian 
Reconstruction of Modern Life, in which he emphasizes 
the great indebtedness of modern civilization to Hellenic 
thought. In this discussion he luminously sets forth 
a large field of fact and truth. I prefer, however, to 
think of the Spirit of Christianity as the primal inspira- 
tion of the race. When Christianity appropriates, as it 
has done, the best ideals in the Hellenic and Roman 
civilizations, I think of it as simply taking over and 
putting its imprint upon that which is by divine right 
its own. And this process will indefinitely continue. 
The Spirit of Truth is abroad in the world, and is still 
taking of the things of Christ and showing them unto 
men. Christianity has as yet by no means been fully 
translated into human thought. 

In just the measure in which the Spirit of Christianity 
shall dominate the heart and conduct of society, in 
that measure will a spiritual philosophy dominate human 
thinking. Christianity is God's supreme appeal to the 
deepest and most inalienable instincts of human nature. 
But this appeal is primarily made neither to man's 
sensuous nor to his intellectual nature. An entire 
age may take a swing toward materialism, may seek to 
find its completest satisfactions in physical enjoyment, 
in the pleasures of sense; or, in a mood which deifies 
the intellect, may seek its supreme good in realms ex- 
plored solely by the rational faculties. But Christianity 
makes its supreme quest and yields its highest benefits 
in neither of these realms. It teaches that man's sensual 
nature is something to be held under authority as a 
bond-servant, and it no more reveals itself to the pride 



3 2o CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

of intellect than do the beauties of a sunrise to a blind 
Samson. 

And all history confirms this attitude of Christianity 
as one of divine wisdom. Man in his deepest being is 
far more a spirit than an animal, far more a divinity 
than simply a logician. It is to the divine and wor- 
shipful in man that Christianity makes its final appeal. 
Every historical experiment with a purely sensual philos- 
ophy has only led its age to a Circe's banquet. Wher- 
ever intellectualism has been substituted for a spiritual 
religion the result has been dearth and barrenness to 
the common soul. Man is too fundamentally a spiritual 
being ever to find complete or final satisfactions in 
realms either distinctively material or mental. How- 
ever diverted from the spiritual an age may be tem- 
porarily, such condition cannot indefinitely continue. In 
sheer revolt against the husks and hunger of its starved 
life, the human soul will in time assert its quest for 
fellowships and satisfactions which are spiritual. 

Christianity has already displaced great paganisms, 
has purged civilization of many evils. But it is still 
in its buoyant youth. While its philosophy was never 
so luminously known nor so widely accepted as to-day, 
yet its larger mission of conquest is in the future. It 
will increasingly clothe itself with knowledge, with 
light, and with power, until it shall have won for itself 
the spiritual supremacy of the race. 

VIII 
Any adequate view of present moral world movements 
must give due space to the temperance reform. No 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 321 

scourge has more fearfully ravaged human welfare than 
the evils of intemperance. There can be no ideal 
civilization in which the liquor traffic shall coexist. It 
is from first to last, and in all its phases, a foe to society. 
There is worldwide and rapidly growing conviction 
that this traffic is an evil which must be dealt with 
and resisted by a union of all good forces. Every civil- 
ized nation in the world is moving, in one form or another, 
against the traffic in strong drink — either to restrict 
its power or to abolish it altogether. 

In the American republic, nine States have adopted 
constitutional prohibition both of the manufacture and 
sale of intoxicating liquor — thus outlawing the traffic. 
The proposition of constitutional amendments embody- 
ing the same ends is in process of submission to popular 
vote in several other States. More than forty million 
of the peoples of the republic are living in territory 
which under local option has been voted as "dry." 

In the State of Kentucky, which has been relatively 
one of the leading producers of whisky, there is a pop- 
ular uprising which not only promises overwhelmingly 
to prohibit the sale of liquors, but which threatens to 
put all the distilleries out of commission. The forces 
of temperance in general were never so effective, and 
never so united as now. They have found their work- 
ing unity not so much by a merging of theories as by 
the facing of a common foe. A great reenforcement 
to temperance movements is the growing conviction 
in the medical profession that alcohol has little or no 
value even as a medicine. The literature of temperance 
education was never so voluminous nor so scientifically 



322 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

convincing as now. A systematic campaign is being 
efficiently conducted in connection with large sections 
of public-school instruction. There is a growing 
coalescence of all good forces, which with more than 
the power of an oath-bound crusade is working toward 
the sure destruction of the traffic in drink. 

In the United States as a whole the liquor interests 
are in retreat. They have seen the handwriting of 
doom upon their very banqueting walls. An infallible 
indication of the decreasing confidence and the panicky 
feeling of the promoters of the traffic in the stability 
and security of their cause would seem to be evidenced 
in the market quotations of their stocks and bonds. 
The stocks of the distilleries and brewing combinations 
have declined by the amount of fifty per cent in the 
last three years. The Distillers' Securities Corporation, 
a corporation supposed to have much the same repre- 
sentative relation to the distilling interests as the Amer- 
ican Tobacco Company to the general tobacco industry, 
has put forth a large fundamental issue of five per cent 
bonds. At the present writing these bonds are quoted 
around sixty-four cents on a dollar. Surely, not a very 
optimistic price for a bond underlying so great vested 
interests! 

IX 

The strength and growth of certain great moral insti- 
tutions merit more than a passing notice. The Sunday 
school, devoted to the biblical education and Christian 
training of the young, represents a movement of most 
commanding significance. The total number of teachers 
and scholars enrolled in the Protestant Sunday schools 



PROPHETIC VISTAS 323 

of the world is nearly, or quite, 29,000,000. The Sunday 
school enrollment in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
alone is 4,227,698; and if the same rate of increase as 
has resulted in the last three years should continue 
unbroken, there would be an enrollment of more than 
10,000,000 in the year 1926. 

The Young Men's Christian Association is widely 
established throughout the world. There were at the 
last report 9,105 of these Associations distributed over 
the globe. These Associations employ 3,853 paid secre- 
taries and other officials at an annual cost of $13,196,809. 
In their various biblical, religious, and physical edu- 
cational departments they are rendering an inestimable 
service. The world's Young Women's Christian Asso- 
ciation, working in the interests largely of young women, 
is kindred in mission to the Young Men's Christian 
Association work. Affiliated with this movement are 
now eighteen distinct national associations, all of them 
moving into enlarging usefulness. 

The Salvation Army of the world and the Volunteers 
of America represent a movement of religious activity 
and usefulness, mostly among the poor, which it is 
impossible to put into statistical measurement, and 
which in the exhibition of Christian devotion and service 
transcends all praise. 

Christian societies of various kinds, inclusive of the 
great Bible and tract societies of the world, all devoted 
to high Christian ends, are too numerous for specific 
mention. They all have a mission and place in the 
world-program of the Kingdom. 

I have attempted in this chapter to indicate a few, 



3 2 4 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

only a few, of the working factors operative in the con- 
structive moral program of present-day Christianity. In 
this program appear large retrieving forces. The col- 
lective Church is giving great study to the correction 
of mistakes, to revision of its methods and policies. 
In the spirit of prophetic outlook it is girding itself 
with mightier unities, with larger knowledge, with more 
reliance on prayer, with deeper consecrations, and with 
profounder purpose for its world-tasks. In the present 
conditions there is not only large promise that it will 
regain its lost ground, but that with quickened pace it 
will move forward to new and superlative victories. 

Man is to-day not only traversing continents and 
oceans at express speed, but he is in command of electric 
and instant knowledge of all current human movements 
throughout the world. The processes of world-educa- 
tion are now rapid and pervasive as never before. The 
public conscience was never so sensitive as now to moral 
issues. Christianity never had so many working allies 
in the field. "The secular press is preaching righteous- 
ness, the editors and the authors are teaching the prin- 
ciples of Christ's kingdom, the politicians are putting 
them into their platforms." 1 Why should there not be 
such a rising of Christian interest that a nation shall 
be born in a day? 

In the meantime the world's humanity, in the light 
of all its history, has no hope save in the gospel of Jesus 
Christ. 



1 James R. Howerton, The Church and Social Reforms, p. 126. 



THE ABIDING CHURCH 



3»5 



And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I 
will build my church: and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
— Matthew 16. 18. 

The ideal Church, like the ideal government, does not exist. Only 
particular churches exist; and no one of these is the Church more than 
any other. They are all the Church of Christ in so far, and only in so 
far, as they have his spirit and do his work; and they derive all their 
value and authority from their demonstrated efficiency in building up 
and maintaining the spiritual life of men. The Kingdom is one; church 
organizations are many, and their value lies in their furtherance of the 
Kingdom. A body of believers suddenly transplanted to some uninhabited 
land, without priest or bishop, could found as true a Church as ever existed, 
if the spirit of God were among them. — Dr. Borden Parker Bowne. 

The mission of the Church will continue as long as the world lasts. 
It will not be so much institutional as inspirational. It will maintain 
holy altars. It will organize noble services of worship. It will teach 
reverence by proclaiming the great Presence. It will not perform all 
the functions even of a holy democracy, but it will furnish men the mood 
of democrats by showing them that they cannot love God unless they love 
their brother also. Forms of words, methods of ritual, days and archi- 
tecture may change, but the transcendent man needs to nourish his soul 
on food that is not bread alone, and not less but more in the days to come 
will men see that worship with all that it implies is the cure for earth's 
sin and sorrow, and that the Church, ever renewing herself by fresh in- 
carnations of the spirit of her Founder, remains the mother of human 
greatness. — Dr. Samuel George Smith. 



326 






CHAPTER XVI 
THE ABIDING CHURCH 

A chief function of Christianity is to produce Christ- 
like men. For this result it provides both agencies 
and nurture. Among agencies the Church has been 
and will remain the very chief. It cannot be too clearly 
understood that the Church is not Christianity. Nor 
is it synonymous with the Kingdom. In Christ's teach- 
ing he put all emphasis upon the Kingdom. It was 
ever in the foreground of his thought. He did, indeed, 
give an important place to the distinctive idea of the 
Church. But this was far less frequent of expression, 
far less of emphasis, than the place and importance 
which he assigned to the Kingdom. 

No sufficient analysis can be given to Christ's relative 
thought of the Kingdom and the Church which will 
not yield the conclusion that with him the Kingdom 
was the all-inclusive end and aim of the gospel which 
he preached. To this end, the Church, however im- 
portant, however indispensable in itself, was simply 
an agency. In later time, indeed as early as in the 
period of apostolic teaching, the "Church" rather than 
the "Kingdom" was the term of more popular Chris- 
tian use. Why this substitution may not perhaps be 
altogether historically clear. The very term "Kingdom," 
if it had been one of common proclamation, might have 
subjected the early Christian teachers to peril from 

327 



328 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

imperial persecution. Roman imperial thought would 
refuse to understand the Christian import of the term, 
and it would be intolerant of the conception of a Chris- 
tian imperium in imperio. 

Another reason for the popular adoption of the term 
"Church" might have grown out of the practical lim- 
itations of early apostolical work. Saint Paul, for in- 
stance, laid great emphasis upon the "Church." Nearly 
all of his epistles were written to individual churches. 
Practically nearly all the contributions of the apostles 
toward the Kingdom were embraced in the organiza- 
tion and establishment here and there of individual 
Christian societies. The Christian societies (churches) 
were the foundation stones necessary to be laid in order 
to the after-structure of the Kingdom itself. These 
early churches were the nuclei, the fountains of in- 
fluence, the schools of nurture, whence the leaven of 
Christian ideals and forces was to work its general way 
into civilization. 

For Saint Paul, as for his illustrious compeers, the 
founding, the training and nurture of individual churches, 
became an absorbing lifework. This was the immediate 
and providentially assigned work given to them as 
builders of the Kingdom. It can be no wonder that 
the churches as such filled both their heart and their 
vision. But all this harmonizes perfectly with the 
assumption that the Kingdom was the larger end which 
these churches as subsidiary agencies were to serve. 
In contrast with Christ's idealism of the Kingdom, 
the Church, in its historic developments, has always 
proven an imperfect vehicle of Christianity. 



THE ABIDING CHURCH 329 

Christ's conception of the Kingdom was a realm of 
moral forces, a society of good will and of benevolent 
activities, one of human brotherhood, of unselfishness, a 
realm under whose standards spirit should be of more 
value than substance, men of more value than machinery; 
in which God, and w r orship, and the human soul should 
be held as facts of transcendent significance and worth. 

Christ's kingdom is one of perfect ideals. It is dom- 
inantly spiritual in conception. It is a kingdom of 
righteousness. Its law is the divine will. Its ideals 
have no space for unethical motives or practices. Its 
love and helpfulness are as broad as the Fatherhood 
of God, and reach to the last need of the weakest and 
most helpless of the human brotherhood. Its spirit 
will not quench the smoking flax of moral desire, nor 
break any bruised reed of righteous aspiration. Its 
citizenship is of all races. To use a classification of 
Dr. Whedon, wherever in Christian or in heathen lands, 
one has "the spirit of faith and the purpose of right- 
eousness," whatever else his knowledge, or lack of knowl- 
edge, there is a citizen of the Kingdom. Christ knows 
all human limitations, whether from heredity, from en- 
vironment, from limited capacity, or from poverty of 
opportunity. But he puts before all men ideals born 
of heaven, and not of earth. And any man, whatever 
his lack of knowledge, who, according to his light, 
conscientiously puts his face toward the good, and who 
seeks to put evil behind him, is a citizen of the Kingdom. 

The Church being a working organization of human 
forces, has never in its practical realizations been either 
as lofty, as broad, as helpful or as holy as are Christ's 



330 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

ideals of the Kingdom. The Church has often put 
organization before life, creed before spirit, its orthodoxies 
before character. Times without number, in its mis- 
taken judgments, it has construed the nonessential into 
the order of the vital, has instituted inquisitions against 
the pure and good, and has persecuted the noblest dis- 
ciples of truth. 

The ideals of the Kingdom are always perfect. The 
achievements of the Church have oftentimes been most 
sadly defective. Judged by the standards of the King- 
dom, many are in its citizenship who are not in the 
membership of the Church; and many are formally 
enrolled in the membership of the Church who are not 
really citizens of the Kingdom. 

The Church has wrought throughout the Christian 
centuries. In civilization it has laid broad and deep 
the foundations of Christianity. On the whole, it has 
been in the world the most fruitful source of lofty ideals, 
the chief educator in morals, the foremost promoter of 
righteousness. It has inspired civilization with its noblest 
motives and purposes, has begotten increasingly in the 
recent ages the most humane thought and most gra- 
cious philanthropic ministry, and, as a very breath of 
heaven, it has carried an atmosphere of sweetness and 
of helpfulness into the social and industrial thought of 
the times. It has begotten a numerous progeny of 
ideals and forces which have gone forth from its portals 
to be in fields, even wider than its own, the working 
evangels of the Kingdom for all the world. 

The mission of the Church, in preparing for the coming 
of the world-Kingdom, has been vast and vital beyond 



THE ABIDING CHURCH 331 

all measurement. But the great revival of the present 
age is one of the Kingdom rather than of the Church. 
As in the early Christian ages the immediate mission 
and conception of the Church put the distinctive and 
larger idea of the Kingdom into the background, so in 
this later age, after centuries of preparation, in the 
fullness of time, the Kingdom, a fact far larger than 
the Church, is coming to its own in Christian thought. 

The signs of the coming of the Kingdom are sentineled 
visibly, as never before, clear around the horizon of 
the broadest and most far-seeing Christian thinking. 
The belated sleeper has but to brush the night dews 
from his eyelashes to discover that the mountain tops 
are agleam with the harbingers of coming day. 

A question of paramount interest, one which the 
remaining discussion of this chapter will seek partially 
to answer, is: What is to be the future relation of the 
Church to the wider movement of the incoming King- 
dom? In the very nature of the case the Church must 
stand central and regnant among the Kingdom-forces. 

The Church as an institution grows out of the reli- 
gious necessities of human nature. As in society and in 
government organization is a necessity to protect and 
to promote the social interests of the community and 
to give a collective value to the institutions of the State, 
so Christianity can discharge its social and moral mis- 
sion to the world most efficiently and only through 
organization. This organization is the Church. As in 
the social world the individual comes to his largest 
influence in and through the social organism, so in the 
religious life the individual worker can realize his largest 



332 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

influence and usefulness only as he works in and through 
organized agencies. 

This is not to say that one might not be a Christian 
outside of an organization. But it would be safe to 
say that such a person is, if at all, a Christian because 
of influences which have reached him through organized 
Christianity. The government of the State acquires its 
ability to create its institutions of popular education, 
its police systems, and its various agencies of public 
service, through the aggregated life and support of the 
body of citizens. So Christianity institutes its schools, 
its presses, its agencies of philanthropic service, its 
ministries of spiritual nurture, through, and in the 
strength of, religious organizations. 

The supreme and indispensable human agency for the 
bringing of Christ's kingdom in the earth is regener- 
ated individual lives. The Church, and the Christian 
home nurtured in the atmosphere of the Church, must 
ever remain the chief sources for the begetting and 
developing of Christianized characters. No other agen- 
cies will ever substitute these twin and creative sources. 

For the highest efficiency of the learned professions 
and of the technical arts, it has been found an increas- 
ing necessity to establish special training schools. These 
schools must be equipped with every appliance of ad- 
vanced science, and must be under the direction of 
highest skill. Such schools are contributing immeasurably 
to the advancement and perfection of the useful arts. 
If Christianity has a mission of supreme interest 
mankind, then this mission must be studied and pro- 
claimed to the world through special agencies ordained 



THE ABIDING CHURCH 333 

and adapted for this high function. What in the lesser 
world of the learned professions and the skilled arts 
the training schools are, the Church is and must remain 
in relation to the imperative teaching and work of Chris- 
tianity. As no other agency the Church is ordained 
and endowed as the supreme and authoritative teacher 
of the world in all high matters of spiritual truth. From 
its schools will go forth those who are to be the peer- 
less expositors and interpreters of God's revelation to 
men. From the training schools of the Church will be 
continuously recruited the ranks of those best fitted 
for moral leadership in the Kingdom itself, the inspired 
prophets of the new and growing moral age. Think of 
the superlative truths with which it is the distinctive 
mission of the Church at first-hand to deal. 

1. The Truth about God. God is the supreme fact of 
the universe. In human vocabulary there is the term 
"atheist." An atheist, if such there really be, is one 
who believes in the non-existence of God. For all 
practical consideration of the question, he is a negligible 
quantity. The overwhelming and historic conviction of 
the race testifies to the Being of God. This testimony 
receives most rational ratification from the sanest and 
profoundest thinkers. It is a testimony which roots 
itself in the deepest instincts of mankind. It may be 
said that a sense of God is primal in human nature. 

The mood of agnosticism toward the idea of God 
does not, rationally considered, furnish so great ground 
for wonderment as does that of atheism. Agnosticism 
does not deny the fact. It simply does not know, and, 
therefore, finds no sufficient ground for intelligent belief. 



334 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

The intellectual environment of an agnostic has to be 
considered. He may be entirely honest in purpose and 
not undevout of spirit. A review of the religions of 
history, while giving abundant proof that the conviction 
of supreme and over-ruling divinity, or divinities, has 
been well-nigh universal, will also show that this con- 
viction has clothed itself in a great variety of forms, 
from the crudest fetishism and the grossest polytheism 
up to the loftiest monotheism. The sense of divinity 
has been universally active in the human breast. Vision 
and knowledge as to the real character and attributes 
of God have been most sadly lacking in the human 
world. 

True knowledge of God is dependent upon revelation. 
The most perfect revelation which even God could give 
of himself is limited in its effect by the receptive and 
appropriative capacity of the mind to whom the revela- 
tion is addressed. Hence God's method in revelation 
has proceeded from simple and rudimentary beginnings, 
advancing toward its fullness of expression by processes 
of intellectual and moral education of the race. In 
the Bible itself, as chronologically traced, there is a 
well-nigh indescribable progress from the first crude 
conceptions of monotheism to the culminating revela- 
tion in Christ Jesus. The process of God's unfolding 
is still, and will ever continue to be, active. The ex- 
panding moral sense and the growing moral vision of 
the race are ever perceiving and appropriating an enlarg- 
ing knowledge of God's true character and purposes; 
and this process will ever continue. 

While God as Creator has implanted universally in 



THE ABIDING CHURCH 335 

the human mind a sense of himself, it remains true that 
the Bible alone furnishes the supreme record of his 
moral and spiritual revelation of himself to mankind. 
In this record God is God alone. He is the sole Creator 
and supreme Sovereign of the universe. He upholds 
the physical systems by the might of his omnipotence. 
He directs them by the power of an unerring will. But 
the real glory of God's sovereignty is in the moral uni- 
verse, a universe compared with which all the physical 
immensities are but as the staging and scaffolding to 
the rising cathedral. God's supreme glory is in his 
moral attributes. He is not only all-powerful and all- 
knowing; but he is all-holy and perfectly righteous. 
His holiness and righteousness are equaled only by his 
love. God's supreme purpose is to people the moral 
universe with children begotten, nurtured, or reclaimed, 
into his own moral likeness. In this conception there 
is room for majestic expansiveness of idea, of illimitable 
outreach for the moral imagination. 

In thinking about God in his relation to the larger 
physical universe, it would be fatuous either to ignore 
or to deny the infinite shrouding of mystery that lies 
over the entire question. Human reason is staggered 
at the thought of the physical immensities. It often 
shrinks from accepting all the implications involved in 
the monotheistic sovereignty of the universe. It thinks 
of man peopling his sand-grain of a world in the infinite 
spaces, and it does not seem probable that the Ruler 
of infinite systems can give himself much concern over 
man's tiny citizenship. 

Probably the real significance of this mental tempta- 



336 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

tion, a temptation quite common to the human reason y 
is in the proof it furnishes of the real infantile character 
as yet of the human mind. This type of reasoning under- 
estimates both the capacity of God and the human 
potentialities. God, just because he is the Infinite, can 
guide the outermost physical universe, and at the same 
time put over his tiniest child the brooding care and 
nurture of his love. As for man, his dwelling place 
in the universe may be remote and his playground small, 
but if he be God's child, he carries in himself the po- 
tency of values which have and can have no equivalent 
in all the physical spaces. 

This is not a field in which any blatant skepticism can 
even appear respectable. Taking no advantage of what 
to many would seem only reasonable assumptions of 
religious faith, it is safe to say that in discussing the 
question of God and the universe no skeptical philosophy 
has been able to suggest any more rational view than 
that set forth in the Christian-theistic conception. 

There is evidently some single and uniform sov- 
ereignty everywhere regnant throughout the physical 
universe. As far as the human reason can follow the 
path of light, it finds not only all suns and systems 
composed of common substances, but it finds all the 
families of worlds yielding to common laws, to the sway 
of a common scepter. There may be something in all 
this to excite in the human breast a sense of profound 
wonder. But it should not the less beget a sense of 
profound reverence. A materialistic skepticism furnishes 
no satisfactory theory of the universe. But a material- 
istic skepticism is not to-day of even good repute. A 






THE ABIDING CHURCH 337 

spiritual philosophy is at the fore in the world's best 
thinking. The God of Christianity is big enough for 
the job of directing the physical universe, and at present 
there are no pretenders in all the field that can make 
any respectable challenge of or show of rivalry against 
his supremacy. 

But when, as best we may, we have explored all outer- 
most fields, our chief and well-nigh our only interest 
in God is in his relations to our human world. Here 
our most interested and most searching questions are 
answered in Jesus Christ. It was Christ's special mis- 
sion to reveal God to men. Indeed, in his own person, 
in his character, his teachings, his dispositions, his mo- 
tives, his services, his sacrifices, he was the living transla- 
tion to the human heart and thought of God's disposi- 
tions and relations toward humanity. Christ reveals God 
as a divine Father to all the children of men. He is 
the God of an ever-watchful and loving providence, a 
providence so minute in its thought of us that it fails 
not to number the very hairs of our heads. 

Christ's revelation of God makes him a Being not 
less sovereign, not less holy, not less intolerant of sin, 
but a Being underneath whose robes of justice, and at 
the very heart of whose love there dwell a spirit of for- 
giveness for his sinning children, a spirit of sacrifice 
that will stop at no costs for the winning to reconcilia- 
tion of those who have alienated themselves from his love. 

Such are some of the qualities of God as set forth in 
Christ's revelation. In the very measure in which these 
questions are apprehended will it be seen that a knowl- 
edge of God, a knowledge of his will and purposes 



338 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

toward mankind, is a question of supreme human im- 
port. No subjects should so fully challenge human 
interest and study as a right understanding of these 
truths. 

In a previous chapter I have dwelt specifically upon 
some of the great truths for which the historic Church 
has stood. In this relation I only purpose to emphasize 
the indispensable mission of the Church in enforcing 
attention to these truths and in keeping them ever 
alive in human thought and conviction. The funda- 
mental truths of Christianity have their source in God. 
They, of all truths, are most vitally related to human 
welfare and destiny. The Church is God's ordained 
agency for the exposition and proclamation of these 
truths to the ages. 

2. Calvary. It is not needful here to attempt a defi- 
nite theory or philosophy of Calvary. Nothing can be 
clearer than that the whole enacted and indescribable 
tragedy was something necessitated on account of sin. 
In a series of divine movements, all concentrated upon 
man's salvation from sin, the cross was a supreme man- 
ifestation. The cross will ever stand in human history 
as the superlative object lesson of God's love for man. 
Whatever else it may have meant, it would seem that 
even God himself could give no more vivid or impressive 
demonstration to human view of the divine earnest- 
ness in seeking man's redemption from the consequences 
of sin than is furnished in the tragedy of Calvary. 

This one measureless sacrifice carries with it the 
pledge that all divine resources, if needs be, are sub- 
ject to requisition in order to effect man's reconciliation 



THE ABIDING CHURCH 339 

to God. Calvary is God's bond that he will do all 
divinely possible to save his human child. If after 
Calvary any soul is lost, it will be because such soul 
insists on using its sovereign decision for self-destruction. 
I do not tarry to discuss the fact of man's sinfulness. 
The human sense of sin is universal. The fact of sin 
is the tragedy of the race. All history asserts man's 
helplessness of self -emancipation from its bondage. His 
only salvation is in divinely proffered help. It will 
always remain one of the chief functions and obliga- 
tions of the Church to herald to the world an awaken- 
ing and alarming message in exposure of sin; always 
its high function to direct human thought to Calvary, 
where may be seen God's most impressive revelation of 
the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world. 

3. The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the continuous 
Teacher and Inspirer of the Church. From the char- 
acter and teachings of Christ he is ever unfolding new 
meaning and enlarging spiritual application for the 
studious and devout seekers after truth. The Holy 
Spirit is God working in all the processes of spiritual 
enlightenment and moral growth. He is preparing the 
hearts of men and of civilizations for the final coming 
of Christ's kingdom. In the field of the Spirit's work 
there is room for exhaustless study, and in the inter- 
pretation of that work there is an infinite wealth of 
material for Christian teaching. The Spirit-inspired 
Church must ever hold in the world the distinctive 
function of translating the mind of the Spirit to the 
thoughts of men. 

4. Christian Living. The Church must remain a chief 



340 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

training school for practical Christian living. Saint 
Paul had a habit of crowding into his epistles many 
precepts for the Christian life. He discoursed upon the 
relations of husbands and wives, of parents and chil- 
dren, of masters and servants. So the Church is to be 
the expounder of Christianity in its application to the 
practical everyday needs and life of its subjects. It 
is its teaching function and responsibility to give a 
rational construction of the uses of prayer, to expound 
the offices of faith in the Christian life, to impress upon 
all the necessity and values of ethical living. 

The Church should be a herald for high ideals of 
honor and equity in business life. It should be a clear 
and forcible expounder of the high moralities which 
should rule in the home, in society, and in politics. It 
should impress upon all men the serious gravity of living, 
the real stewardship of life, the Christlike lesson that 
life's noblest ends can be realized only in a spirit of 
service and helpfulness to the world. 

The Church should lay a full and cheering emphasis 
upon the optimisms of the Christian faith. When Saint 
Paul was in the Roman prison under sentence of death 
he wrote to the Philippian church, declaring his own 
joy that he was counted worthy to be made an offering 
in their behalf. His position would not seem to be 
conducive to joy, but in this very epistle he repeats over 
and over the Christian privilege of rejoicing. Among his 
closing words are these: "Rejoice in the Lord; and again 
I say, rejoice." Christianity comes with a great wealth 
of cheer, of hope, of spiritual uplifting to the world's 
burden-bearers, to the weary, the weak, and the depressed. 



THE ABIDING CHURCH 341 

The life of the Church ought always to be buoyant 
and songful in the joy of Christian inspirations. It owes 
this constant attitude to the wayworn pilgrims whose 
feet it is pointing to the gateways of the blessed life. 
Christianity does not promise to its subjects exemption 
from toil, or trial, or even sorrow. But it does promise 
to every obedient disciple, whatever his earthly lot, sus- 
taining grace in the full measure of his needs. It should 
not be a chief aim for the Christian to pray for deliv- 
erance from trial. The good God may be preparing the 
best possible things for us in the very processes of our 
trials. The diamond receives its finest polish for the 
king's diadem by the most merciless grinding upon the 
lapidary's stone. So the Word tells us that they who 
shall rank most conspicuously among the finally glorified, 
those who shall stand nearest the throne, are they who 
shall have come up through great tribulation. 

There is a distinctive mission which it is difficult to 
see how any other agency than the Church can ever 
as fittingly discharge. This is a ministry to the sick 
and to the bereaved. When people are old or sick, and 
are far down the slopes toward the great divide, they 
need consolations other than any which are earth-born. 
It is a blessed thing in these closing stages of the journey 
to receive from sympathetic hearts and skillful lips 
divine consolations. And if when are hushed "the last 
low whispers of the dying" there be no messenger from 
heaven to the smitten living, how sad and forlorn the 
situation! It is in life's extreme emergencies that the 
Church may impart a ministry priceless in its sym- 
pathies and inspirations. The Church has an invaluable 



342 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

ministry for life in all the journey from birth to death. 
The commission for this ministry will never in time be 
recalled. 

5. Immortality. One of the chief doctrinal missions of 
the Church will be ever to keep alive in human con- 
victions and hopes the revelation of immortality. With- 
out the faith of immortality, Christianity, however 
otherwise beautiful and inspirational, would be bereft 
of that which gives it chief significance and divinest 
values. Christianity is a religion with eternity in its 
message. If human faith shall lose sight of the super- 
lative motives and inspirations of this revelation, then, 
whatever else comes into view, there is hidden from life 
the very crown of its possibilities, and man is blind to 
the supreme and fadeless values which God purposes for 
his destiny. 

The Kingdom upon which Christ so habitually dwelt 
is indeed for this world. It is, so far as our world-history 
is concerned, the one supreme goal toward which God 
is directing the moral and spiritual activities of the 
race. It is God's purpose that the very earth itself 
shall be transformed into an abode of righteousness, 
that it shall finally be something far better than the 
lost Eden of the Genesis story. Toward this consum- 
mation there are now set great and increasing trends 
in the social and moral movements in history. There will 
come a day somewhere, when, considering the inevitable 
limitations of human existence, this world in its physical, 
intellectual, social, and moral conditions, will be as perfect 
a world as God can produce through a regenerated hu- 
manity. 



THE ABIDING CHURCH 343 

But when finally, in that good age which has filled the 
vision of prophets, this world shall have come to its 
best, it will then be no more than a kindergarten in 
God's great plans for human destiny. The final, the 
consummated, Kingdom toward which Christianity works 
will be realized in climes whose atmospheres have never 
been touched by contagion, and whose landscapes bear 
no marks of graves. God's moral purposes for this 
world embrace infinite improvements, unmeasured trans- 
formations, for human betterment. But in all the divine 
scheme for this human world, there is nowhere any 
promise that man shall not die, that he shall be exempt 
from accident, that he shall not know the pains and 
weakness of disease, the sorrows of bereavement. 

When this world is made as perfect as possible by 
the installment of all sanitary science, and by the reg- 
nancy of highest moral living, it will then fall immeas- 
urably short of that world where God shall have wiped 
all tears from the eyes of his people, where there shall 
be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither 
shall there be any more pain; because the former things 
are passed away. 

The ideal world-kingdom is at best but a transitional 
stage between much that is now evil and perishing to 
that which is perfect and eternal. A vivid faith in 
Christian immortality is of deepest necessit}^ to the pass- 
ing life of men. The world-kingdom, in its perfection, 
can be but gradually approached. Its goal may be 
far distant. In the meantime multitudes of God's people 
in this world are struggling with poverty, with priva- 
tion, are pressed upon by immeasurable limitations, by 



344 CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW AGE 

lack of opportunity, are burdened with toil, infirmities, 
and disease. These are the true heirs of God's 
redemptive grace. He does not mean that in his larger 
scheme of being these shall in any measure be robbed 
of their birthright. For them the faith of immortality 
holds infinite compensations. 

For the toilsome children of mortality, for the foot- 
worn and weary pilgrims of time, the Church will ever 
have a high and divine mission in proclaiming a clime 
of abiding rest for the weary, of perfect health for those 
now sick, a land where labor shall be an endless exhilara- 
tion, a land of plenty forevermore, a land in which age 
and decay shall give place to the beauty and vigor of 
undying youthfulness. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



345 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

In addition to the following volumes as herewith named, I have had 
occasion to examine several topics as treated in standard books of ref- 
erence such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Encyclopedia of Religion 
and Ethics, and other works of acknowledged merit. 

Ames, Edward Scribner. The Psychology of Religious Experience. 

Bacon, Benjamin Wisner. The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate. 

Ballard, Frank. Christian Essentials. 

Benson, Allan L. The Truth About Socialism. 

Boothe, Meyrick. Rudolph Eucken. 

Boutroux, E. Science and Religion in Contemporary Philosophy. 

Bowne, Borden Parker. Personality: The Essence of Religion. 

Brace, Charles Loring. Gesta Christi. 

Bricker, Garland A. Solving the Country Church Problem. 

Brooks, John Graham. The Social Unrest. 

Buckle, Henry Thomas. History of Civilization in England. 

Cairns, D. S. Christianity in the Modern World. 

Carlile, John C. Christian Union in Social Service. 

Chapman, Edward Mortimer. English Literature in Account with Re- 
ligion. 

Clarke, William Newton. The Christian Doctrine of God. 

Clow, W. M. The Cross in Christian Experience; Christ in the Social 
Order. 

Coe, George Albert. The Religion of a Mature Mind. 

Curnock, Nehemiah, Editor. The Journal of John Wesley. 

Cunningham, W. Christianity and Social Questions. 

Davidson, A. B. The Theology of the Old Testament. 

Davison, W. T. The Indwelling Spirit. 

Deissmann, Adolph. Light from the Ancient East. 

Denney, James. The Atonement and the Modern Mind. 

Dickinson, Charles Henry. The Christian Reconstruction of Modern 
Society. 

Dole, Charles F. The Theology of Civilization. 

Downey, David G., Editor. Militant Methodism. 

Driver, Samuel Rolls. Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testa- 
ment. 

Eiselen, Frederick C. Prophecy and the Prophets. 

Eucken, Rudolf. The Problem of Human Life. 

347 



348 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Fairbairn, Andrew Martin. The Philosophy of the Christian Religion, 

The Place of Christ in Modern Theology. 
Finney, Ross L. Personal Religion and the Social Awakening. 
Flick, Alexander Clarence. The Rise of the Mediaeval Church. 
Forsyth, P. T. The Person and Place of Jesus Christ. 
Fourth Ecumenical Methodist Conference. 
Gilbert, George H. Interpretation of the Bible. 
Gill and Pinchot. The Country Church. 
Gladden, Washington. Christianity and Socialism. 
Glasgow University Lectures. Religion and the Modern Mind. 
Glover, T. R. The Christian Tradition and Its Fulfillment. 
Gray, George Buchanan. Critical Introduction to the Old Testament. 
Grist, Alexander. The Historic Christ in the Faith of Today. 
Hall, Thomas C. Social Solutions. 
Halstead, William Riley. A Cosmic View of Religion. 
Hausmann, E. Eucken and Bergson. 
Hill, David J. The Social Influence of Christianity. 
Hillquit, Morris. Socialism Summed Up. 
Howerton, James R. The Church and Social Reforms. 
Keeble, Samuel E. The Social Teachings of the Bible. 
King, Basil. The Way Home. 
King, Henry Churchill. The Moral and Religious Challenge of Our 

Times; Reconstruction in Theology; Theology and the Social Con- 
sciousness. 
King, William Lester. Investment and Achievement. 
Knudson, Albert C. The Beacon Lights of Prophecy. 
Lecky, W. E. H. History of European Morals. 
Lee, Gerald Stanley. Crowds. 

Loofs, Friedrich. What is the Truth About Jesus Christ? 
Mathews, Shailer. The Church and the Changing Order; The Gospel 

and the Modern Man. 
Moore, Edward C. Christian Thought Since Kant. 
Moulton, James Hope. Religions and Religion. 
Nash, Henry S. Genesis of the Social Conscience; The History of the 

Higher Criticism. 
Orr, James. The Faith of a Modern Christian. 
Peabody, Francis Greenwood. Jesus Christ and the Social Question; 

Jesus Christ and Christian Character. 
Peake, Arthur S. The Bible — Its Origin, Its Significance, Its Abiding 

Worth. 
Plantz, Samuel. The Church and the Social Problem. 
Rashdall, Hastings. Philosophy and Religion. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 34Q 

Rauschenbusch, Walter. Christianity and the Social Crisis; Christian- 
izing the Social Order. 

Renan, Ernest. Life of Jesus. 

Rice, William North. Christian Faith in an Age of Science. 

Russell, Lord. Collections and Recollections. 

Sanday, William. The Life of Christ in Recent Research; The Criticism 
of the Fourth Gospel. 

Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historic Jesus. 

Seven Oxford Men. Foundations. 

Shotwell, James T. The Religious Revolution of Today. 

Sims, P. Marion. What Must the Church Do to Be Saved? 

Smith, John. Christian Character as a Social Power. 

Smith, Samuel George. Democracy and the Church. 

Smythe, Newman. Christian Ethics. 

Stevens, George Barker. The Theology of the New Testament. 

Strong, Josiah. Our World. 

Swete, Henry Barclay, Editor. Cambridge Theological Essays; Cam- 
bridge Biblical Essays. 

Ulhorn, Gerhard. Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism. 

Vaughan, Bernard. Socialism from the Christian Standpoint. 

Walling, William English. The Larger Aspects of Socialism. 

Wells, H. G. Socialism and the Great State. 

Wenner, George U. Religious Education and the Public Schools. 

Whiton, James Morris, Editor. Getting Together — Essays. 

Williams, Aneurin. Co-Partnership and Profit-Sharing. 

Wilson, Warren H. The Evolution of the Country Church. 

Womer, Horace Emory. The Psychology of the Christian Life. 

Womer, Parley Paul. The Church and the Labor Conflict. 



INDEX 



351 



INDEX 



Abbot, Ezra, quoted, 89. 

America, influence of Church in 
early history of, 25; contribution 
of scholarship of, to biblical criti- 
cism, 93; separation of Church 
and state in, 10 1; educational 
system of, appraised, 103, 106, 
I09ff.; gravity of neglect of reli- 
gious education in, 114; national 
wealth of, 145, 162; Christian 
Church most dominant institu- 
tion in, 183; status of prohibition 
in, 321. 

American Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions, organization of, 214. 

Ante-Nicene Fathers, influence of, 
on biblical interpretation, 82. 

Arethusa, 105. 

Argentina and Chile, peace treaty 
between, 313. 

Aristotle, 251. 

Assisi, Francis, 266. 

Athanasian creed, 9. 

Augustine, 9; the greatest Christian 
mind of his century, 10; early 
spiritual training of, 105. 

Bashfords, 240. 

Basil, 104. 

Bauer, 92. 

Benson, Allan L., quoted, 146. 

.Bible, causes of enforced changes in 
interpretation of, 64; scientific 
knowledge to aid in interpretation 
of, 76; erroneously interpreted in 
earlier ages, 83 ; scientific criticism 
of, inevitable, 87; needs only 
clear opportunity to deliver its 



own message, 91; effect of scien- 
tific criticism on, 98; furnishes 
supreme record of God's moral 
and spiritual revelation of him- 
self to mankind, 335. 

Biblical criticism, Principal A. M. 
Fairbairn on, 80; Professor James 
Hope Moulton on, 80; Professor 
Arthur S. Peake on, 80; some 
historic phases of, 82ff. ; two lines 
of development of, 88ff.; Ezra 
Abbot on, 89; indebted to Ger- 
man nation for, 91; effect of, on 
German people, 92; contributed 
to by various nations, 93; no 
longer in control of destructive 
minds, 94; present status of, 94, 
95; results of, in Old Testament, 
96; in New Testament, 97; high 
value of, 98. 

Bibliotheca Sacra, quoted, 37. 

Bishop, Mrs. Isabella Bird, on mis- 
sions, 217. 

Booth, General, 240. 

Bowne, Dr. Borden Parker, quoted, 
4, 182; cited, 317, 318; quoted, 
326. 

Bricker, Professor Garland A., 
"Solving the Country Church 
Problem" by, quoted, 34, 35, 36. 

British Blue Book of 1904, quoted, 
223. 

Brooklyn, results of church canvass 
in one ward of, 30. 

Brooks, Phillips, on foreign mis- 
sions, 216. 

Brotherhood of man, significance of 
doctrine of, 267; enthronement in 



353 



354 



INDEX 



human thought of spirit of, su- 
preme task of a Christian civiliza- 
tion, 287; removal of animosities 
prevailing between capital and 
labor will open wide the door for, 
309; is only philosophy which fits 
need of growing modern world, 
316. 

Bushnell, Dr. Charles J., cited, 142. 

Business, investment in, a legiti- 
mate use of wealth, 136, 294; un- 
ethical management of many lines 
of, 272, 273; Church should be a 
herald for high ideals of honor and 
equity in, 340. 

Cairns, Dr. D. S., "Christianity in 
the Modern World" by, quoted, 
287. 

Calvary, the superlative object les- 
son of God's love for man, 338- 

339- 

Capitalism, feeling of poor toward, 
46; relation of, to labor, 138, 
146ft". , 302ff.; message of Church 
to, 201; Christianization of, a 
supreme problem of Christianity, 
202; increasingly impelled by 
spirit of philanthropy, 292; call 
for service heard and heeded by, 
2 93» 295; opportunity for per- 
sonal service in, 298; in its pres- 
ent form, a menace to the very 
life of the republic, 304. 

Carey, William, 213, 240. 

Carlile, J. C, quoted, 287. 

Carnegie, Andrew, 313. 

Catholicism, 62; parochial schools 
of, 102, 114. 

Celsus, 185. 

Chile and Argentina, peace treaty 
between, 313. 

China, an example of conservatism, 
61; the awakening of, 288, 289. 



Christ, Personality of, 6; imper- 
fectly understood by companions, 
7; inadequately measured by 
creeds, 10; increasing influence of, 
11-13; subjected to tests of 
science, 11 ; critical investigation 
in Germany of life of, 14; satis- 
faction of world's need in gospel 
of, 15; mission of, 17; revealed in 
lives of his followers, 17; friend of 
poor, 43, 190; methods of teach- 
ing, 68; attitude of, toward chil- 
dren, 104; teachings of, concern- 
ing wealth, 135, 137; belief of 
Christian Church in, 186; put 
divine seal on sacredness of fam- 
ily life, 191; mission of Holy 
Spirit to fulfill purpose of and 
interpret, 230, 236; the most ex- 
alted servant of humanity, 241; 
ideals of, of increasing power, 
242 ; the one purpose in gospel of, 
to bring man into real sonship 
with God, 246; the ideal, into 
whose likeness God proposes to 
bring all men, 255; gospel of, a 
gospel of immortality, 256; gospel 
of, most fruitful source of ideals 
of modern prophets, 278; attitude 
of organized labor toward, 303; 
principle of cooperation in har- 
mony with ideals of, 308; prin- 
ciples announced by, continu- 
ally expanding in adaptation to 
world's new knowledge, 318; 
world's humanity has no hope 
save in gospel of, 324; the King- 
dom the all-inclusive end and aim 
of gospel preached by, 327; his 
conception of Kingdom, 329; mis- 
sion of, to reveal God to men, 337. 

Christendom, distinctive concep- 
tion of missions in, of late ex- 
pression, 212. 



INDEX 



355 



Christianity, influence and power 
of, 5, 198; measure of achieve- 
ment, 24; a missionary religion, 
25; retarded by petty denomina- 
tionalism, 26; the problems of 
the city, the final test of, 27; 
relation of, to poor, 44; early, 
burdened with superstition, 61 ; 
fairest opportunity in a rationally 
ordered society, 68; living Christ 
basis of growing power of, 72; 
science an ally of, 73; value set 
by, upon spiritual training of 
childhood, 104; elimination of re- 
ligious instruction from public 
school system an injustice against, 
106; socialism not a substitute for, 
177; enfranchised laboring classes, 
190; ennobling influence of, on 
status of woman, 191; teachings 
of, concerning wealth, 193; Chris- 
tianization of capitalism a su- 
preme problem of, 202 ; spread by 
persecution, 212; mission of, to 
the bodies as well as to the souls of 
men, 224; hampered by pagan- 
ism in early ages, 233 ; sacredness 
of human life, a new ideal intro- 
duced by, 2476:.; a leveler of 
caste, 250; genuine, characterized 
by active sympathy with human 
needs, 265; part of mission of, to 
remove causes from which world's 
needs arise, 266; some of the 
prophets of social, 269; problems 
confronting social, 270,271; pres- 
ent-day revival a translation of, 
into terms of modern-world 
thought, 282; problems confront- 
ing present-day, are world prob- 
lems, 288-290; sufficient to meet 
social and moral needs of all 
mankind, 291; real spirit of, ex- 
i emplified among missionary work- 



ers, 310; spirit of federation one 
of largest prophecy for, 311; to 
become the universal and final 
religion, 318; supreme appeal of, 
is to the divine and worshipful 
in man, 319, 320; a chief function 
of, to produce Christlike men, 
327; fundamental truths of, have 
their source in God, 338; prom- 
ises not exemption from trial, but 
sustaining grace, 341. 

Christian living, Church a chief 
training school for practical, 340. 

Chrysostom, early spiritual training 
of, 105. 

Church, Christian, a success or 
failure, 24; place of, in American 
history, 25; present status of, in 
America, 26; status of, in cities, 
29 ; causes of decline in rural com- 
munities, 3 iff.; Professor Garland 
A. Bricker on country, 34, 35, 36; 
attitude of poor toward, 44ff., 150, 
203; supported and attended 
largely by privileged classes, 45; 
quality of mission work of, 45; 
labor out of harmony with, 47ff., 
303 ; mutual need of laboring man 
and, 49, 50; theological teaching 
of, in early ages, 83; rule of, in 
Middle Ages, beneficent, 84; 
mother of popular education, 106; 
mutual need of professional 
classes and, 122; should stand for 
highest truth, 123; character of 
ministry of vital importance to, 
125; needs adequately trained 
ministry, 128; undue influence of 
wealth in, 153; influence of, 183; 
growth of, 184, 185; vitalized by 
an indwelling divinity, 185, 187; 
belief of, in Jesus Christ, 186; 
some fundamental teachings of, 
187, 188; transforming influence 



356 



INDEX 



of, upon institutions of society, 
189; friend of poor and toiling 
men, 190; high place accorded 
woman by, 192; humane reforms 
inspired by, 194; debt of civiliza- 
tion to, 197 ; critical situation con- 
fronting present-day, 199; mes- 
sage of, to the capitalist, 201; 
alienation of labor and, an im- 
measurable disaster, 204; must 
acquire secret and power of 
working unity, 205, 311; blind- 
ness of, as to its missionary duty, 
212; missionary message to, calls 
for largest consecration of gifts 
and service, 218; promise of Holy 
Spirit not fully appropriated in 
faith of, 229; new moral educa- 
tion arising in, 268 ; characteristics 
of future, 282 ; distinction between 
' "Kingdom" and, 327, 328; some 
achievements of, in preparing for 
coming of Kingdom, 330; is or- 
ganization through which Chris- 
tianity can discharge its mission 
most efficiently, 331; superlative 
truths with which it is distinctive 
mission of, to deal, 333-342. 

Churchill, Winston, "The Modern 
Quest for a Religion" by, cited, 
15; "The Inside of the Cup" by, 
cited, 151. 

Church Missionary Society of Lon- 
don, 213. 

Cicero, quoted, 189. 

City, controlling power of modern 
civilization, 27; characteristics of 
ideal, 28; present-day evils of, 28; 
status of Christian Church in, 29. 

Civilization, requirements of an 
ideal, 102; debt of, to Christian 
Church, 189-194, 197; supreme 
task of Christian, 287; capitalism 
a passing phase in, 304; greatest 



menace to present, warfare be- 
tween wealth and production, 
304. 

Clement, quoted, 190. 

Clow, Dr. W. M., "Christ in the 
Social Order" by, quoted, 135, 
156. 

Coe, Professor George A., quoted, 
296. 

Conservatism, a controlling force in 
thought and conduct, 61, 62. 

Cooperation, instead of competi- 
tion, 287; a word of great promise 
for the future, 304; principle of, 
in harmony with ideals of Jesus 
Christ, 308. 

Cooperative developments, extent 
of, 307; Aneurin Williams on, 307; 
Professor Walter Rauschenbusch 
on, 308. 

Copernicus, 169. 

Corliss engine, the evolution of the, 

65. 

Corporations, monopolistic, 140- 
142; relation of, to politics and 
legislation, 144; advantage of, over 
labor, I46ff. See Capitalism. 

Country, status of Church in, 30, 
33; changed conditions in, 31, 32; 
inadequate support of Church and 
ministry in, 356?. 

Crane, Dr. Frank, quoted, 264. 

Cross, the measure of God's invest- 
ment in the interests of man, 254, 
338; testifies to infinite values in 
human nature, 255. 

Crow, Carl, cited, 213; quoted, 217, 
223, 224. 

Custom, tyranny of, 58, 232. 

Darwin, 121, 169. 
Davison, W. T., quoted, 228. 
Declaration of the Official Curric- 
ulum from the Volksschulen of 






INDEX 



357 



the Kingdom of Wurtemburg, 
quoted, 107. 

Denmark, cooperative develop- 
ments in, 307. 

Dennis, Dr. James S., quoted, 224. 

Dominations, number of, in Amer- 
ican Protestantism, 26; multipli- 
cation of, a blight on rural 
churches, 33, 129; need of a 
working unity among, 205, 207, 

311. 

Dickens's Christmas story of 
Scrooge, quoted, 299, 300. 

Dickinson, Charles Henry, quoted, 
42, 134, 244; "The Christian Re- 
construction of Modern Life" by, 
cited, 319. 

Driver, S. R., 93. 

Edison, 253. 

Education, secularization of, a de- 
structive foe to spirituality, 101; 
relation of, to effective ministry, 
I25ff.; new moral, arising in 
Church, 268. See Religious Edu- 
cation. 

England, cooperative developments 
in, 307. 

Erasmus, 84. 

Eucken, Rudolf, the philosophy of, 

Evolution, teachings of, with ref- 
erence to laws of conduct, 57; 
goal of, a universe peopled with 
moral and spiritual intelligence, 
258. 

Fairbairn, Principal A. M., quoted, 
80; "The Philosophy of the Chris- 
tian Religion" by, cited, 317. 

Faith, relation of science to, 69. 

Federal Council of the Churches of 
Christ in America, the, quoted, 
100; cited, 115. 



Federation, spirit of, in mission 
fields, a summons to home 
churches, 309, 310; spirit of, one 
of largest prophecy for Chris- 
tianity, 311. 

France, 93, 308. 

Francke, August Hermann, real 
founder of public school, 105. 

Fraser, Sir Andrew H. L., quoted, 
224. 

Frederick the Great, 105. 

French Revolution, 304. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 272. 

General Assembly of the Church of 
Scotland, resolution of, in 1796, 
concerning foreign missions, 214. 

Germany, critical investigation in, 
of life of Christ, 14; indebted to, 
for biblical criticism, 92; pro- 
vision for religious training in 
educational system of, 107, 108; 
cooperative developments in, 307. 

Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" cited, 
184, 249. 

Gill, Charles Otis, 38. 

God, the Church the expounder of 
the will of, concerning man, 188; 
Holy Spirit is, in the world work- 
ing mission and kingdom of Jesus 
Christ, 229; Old Testament view 
of, 245; New Testament view of, 
246; purpose of, in man, 25 iff.; 
transcendent meaning of cross 
centers in interest of, in hu- 
manity, 254, 338; real glory of, is 
moral, 256; evolution has no 
meaning without, 258; brother- 
hood of man, a twin doctrine to 
Fatherhood of, 267; patiently 
working out his purpose, 268; 
the rights of the children of, to 
His wealth, 305; the truth about, 
333-338. See Holy Spirit. 



358 



INDEX 



Golden Rule, contains final solution 
of misadjustments of the world, 
242. 

Goldsmith, "Deserted Village," 
quoted, 130. 

Greece, 196. 

Gregory of Nazianzen, 104. 

Hall, Gordon, 214. 

Halstead, Dr. William R., quoted, 
100; "A Cosmic View of Reli- 
gion" by, quoted, 102. 

Hardie, Keir, "Serfdom to Social- 
ism" by, quoted, 172. 

Harrison, H. S., "V. V.'s Eyes" by, 
cited, 151. 

Hague Court of Arbitration, 315. 

Heathendom, absence in, of better 
qualities of Christian civilization, 

195. 
Higher criticism, 88; defined, 91; 

acceptance of, 93; influence of, 

compared with that of secularized 

education, 10 1. 
Hill, David J., quoted, 4. 
Hillquit, Morris, quoted, 42, 136, 

158, 159, 171. 173. 

Hofmann, quoted, 18. 

Holland, 93. 

Holy Spirit, mission of, 229, 236; 
supreme task of, to gain moral 
supremacy over the individual, 
231; test of Spirit's reign, that 
one's life shall show conformity 
to law of, 232; larger relation of, 
to the world, 232; work of, in 
spiritual enlightenment and trans- 
formation of human society, 
234fL; advance of race under 
guidance of, 239; the continuous 
Teacher and Inspirer of the 
Church, 339. 

Home, lack of religious training in, 
103. 



Home Missions Council, 310. 
Honorable East India Company, 

attitude of, toward missions, 213, 

272. 
Hort, 89. 

Horton, Dr. R. P., cited, 29. 
Howard, John, 240. 
Howerton, James R., "The Church 

and Social Reforms" by, quoted, 

324. 
Hugo, Victor, quoted, 244. 
Hunter, Sir William, quoted, 210. 

Immortality, teaching of Church 
concerning, 188; an indispensable 
condition for development of hu- 
manity in God, 256; one mission 
of Church, to keep alive in human 
hopes the revelation of, 342; a 
vivid faith in, of deepest neces- 
sity to passing life of men, 343. 

Ingersoll, Robert, 185. 

International Critical Commentary, 
93- 

International Peace Plan, 315. 

International Socialist Bureau, 
158. 

International Theological Library, 

93- 

Israel, message of prophets to, 274- 

277. 
Italy, 93. 

James, William, cited, 317. 

Japan, awakening of, 288. 

Johannine writings, biblical criti- 
cism of authorship and dates, 97. 

Judah, message of prophets to, 274- 
277. 

Judsons, the, 240. 

Kant, 121. 

Kepler, 240. 

Kidd, Benjamin, 194. 



INDEX 



359 



King, Basil, "The Way Home" by, 
quoted, 152. 

Kingdom, the, 198; dedication of 
wealth to upbuilding of, 203, 295, 
300; human enlightenment not 
yet ready for full development 
of, 237; new moral education in 
Church the foreheralding of 
mightiest revival in interests of, 
268; factors in upbuilding of, 281 ; 
movement for reign of peace, a 
movement of, 316; is all-inclusive 
end and aim of Christ's teaching, 
327; Christ's conception of, 329; 
is coming to its own in Christian 
thought, 331 ; supreme agency for 
bringing of, is regenerated and 
individual lives, 332 ; ideal world, 
a transitional stage to that which 
is perfect and eternal, 343. 

Knowledge, debt of , to science, 
69ft. 

Labor, attitude of, toward Church, 
47, 150, 189, 203; condition of, 
without Church, 49; mutual need 
of Church and laboring men, 50, 
204; responsibility of wealth to- 
ward, 138; advantage of corpora- 
tions over, 146*1.; outlook for, 
148; growing discontent of, 150; 
relation of, to Socialism, 158; 
some contributory causes to prej- 
udice against spirit of organized, 
301 ; relation between capital and, 
302ff.; theory wrong that, is sole 
producer of values, 306. 

Leadership, demand for educated, 
I25ff. 

Legislation, influence of financial 
interests on, 144. 

Lessing, quoted, 9, 12. 

Libanius, quoted, 105. 

Life, human, new ideal of sacred- 



ness of, introduced by Chris- 
tianity, 247ff. 
Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, 23; 

emancipator and martyr, 240. 
Liquor traffic, international crusade 

against, 321, 322. 
Livingstone, 240. 
Loofs, Dr. Friedrich, "What Is the 

Truth About Jesus Christ?" by, 

quoted, 11. 
Lowell, James Russell, quoted, 46, 

264. 
Luther, demand of, for religious 

education of childhood, 105- 

cited, 121, 240. 

Macaulay, on Lessing, 9. 

Macdonald, Ramsey, quoted, 172. 

Machinery, introduction of, radi- 
cally changed relation of capital 
to labor, 145. 

Maeterlinck, "Mary Magdalene" 
by, quoted, 43, 44. 

Mammon, power of, 270, 271. 

Man, the two supreme facts of 
Christian revelation are God and, 
245 ; highest interpretation of, the 
Son of God, 247; God's purpose 
in, 25 iff.; is greater than his 
achievements, 252; most sov- 
ereign achievements of, are sim- 
ply for service, 253; the cross, 
the measure of God's investment 
in the interests of, 254, 338; to 
be brought into the likeness of 
Christ, 255; immortality to fur- 
nish opportunity for fullest de- 
velopment of, 256-258; goal of 
evolution, man perfected, 259; 
divine view of, destined to take 
controlling place in common 
thought, 260; significance of doc- 
trine of brotherhood of, 267. 

Mathews, Shailer, quoted, 265. 



360 



INDEX 



McArthur, Alexander, M. P., quot- 
ed, 210. 

Methodist Men, National Conven- 
tion of, 211, 215. 

Meyer, Henry H., 18, 109. 

Middle Ages, place held by Church 
in, 85 ; religious education during, 
105. 

Mills, Samuel, 214. 

Milton, 240. 

Ministry, arduous duties, and in- 
adequate support of, in rural 
communities, 34ft.; average sal- 
ary of, compared with certain 
classes of laborers, 37 ; intellectual 
demands on, 120; character of, of 
vital importance to Church, 125; 
need of thorough educational 
preparation for, I25ff.; some at- 
tributes of efficient, 130; restric- 
tions placed upon by worshipers 
of Mammon, 273, 274. 

Missionaries, high qualifications 
necessary for, 221,222; work of 
requires infinite patience and 
faith, 222; real spirit of Chris- 
tianity exemplified among, 310. 

Missions, Sir William Hunter on, 
210; Alexander McArthur on, 
210; Dr. W. F. Oldham on, 210, 
215, 312; the most sublime move- 
ment in present-day history, 211; 
movement started in face of in- 
difference and opposition, 213; 
Carl Crow on, 213, 217, 223, 224; 
phenomenal growth of, in recent 
years, 214,215; Phillips Brooks 
on, 216; Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop 
on, 217; message of, calls for 
largest consecration of gifts and 
service, 218; considered as a 
business enterprise, 219; coming 
victory of, 220, 225; efficient ad- 
ministration of home boards, 221 ; 



magnificent educational work of, 
223; British Blue Book of 1904 
on, 223; medical and other 
achievements of, 224; Dr. James 
S. Dennis on, 224; Sir Andrew 
H. L. Fraser on, 224; supreme 
importance of Christian unity 
taught by, 309; significance of, 
in their relation to progress of 
Christ's Kingdom, 312. 

Monica, 105. 

Monopolies, capitalistic, a menace 
to democratic government, 141; 
opposed to progress of vital Chris- 
tianity, 142; individuals compos- 
ing, ordinarily selfish, 143. See 
Capitalism. 

Morrisons, the, 240. 

Mott, Dr. John R., leadership of, 
220. 

Moulton, Professor James Hope, 
quoted, 80. 

Muir, Rev. William, "Christianity 
and Labor" by, quoted, 153. 

Nature, scientific knowledge of, a 

modern achievement, 71. 
Neglected Fields Survey, cited, 310. 
New Testament, results of biblical 

criticism of, 97; revelation of God 

in, 246. 
Newton, 169. 
New York City, the most important 

mission field of the world, 206. 
Nicholson, Dr. Thomas, quoted, 

100, 109, III, 112, Il8. 

Nightingale, Florence, 240. 

Northwestern University, recruits 
from, for foreign missionary serv- 
ice, III. 

Oldham, Dr. W. F., quoted, 210, 

215,312. 
Old Testament, results of biblical 



INDEX 



361 



criticism of, 96; revelation of 
God in, 245. 
Orient, linked by science with the 
west, 71; awakening of, 288; 
interests of Occident and, in- 
creasingly intermingled, 289. 

Paganism, unable to satisfy deeper 
spiritual instincts, 196; effect of, 
upon early Christianity, 233; 
transformation of, by Holy Spirit, 

234- 

Palace of Peace at The Hague, 313. 

Panama Canal belt, transformed by 
science, 75. 

Paul, Saint, incomplete knowledge 
of Christ, 8 ; teaching of, concern- 
ing function of Holy Spirit, 230; 
great emphasis laid by, upon the 
"Church," 328. 

Peabody, George, 240. 

Peace, international movements in 
interest of, 313-316. 

Peake, Professor Arthur S., quoted, 
80. 

Philanthropy, some general features 
of present-day, 292ff. 

Philosophy, of future, to be en- 
riched by scientific knowledge, 
75 ; marked reaction in, from ma- 
terialism of a generation ago, 
316; influence of religion upon, 

317. 

Pinchot, Gifford, quoted, 22; cited, 
38. 

Plantz, President, results of labor 
inquiry made by, 48. 

Plato, 251. 

Politics, control of, by financial in- 
terests, 144. 

Poor, Christ, the friend of, 43; 
attitude of, toward Church, 446?., 
150, 203; awakening sense of soli- 
darity, 46; interest of, in social 



justice, 47; attractive program 
offered by Socialism to, 161. 

Population, compared with church 
membership and attendance, 26, 
27, 29. 

Press, influence of, 119; venalized 
by financial interests, 144. 

Production, factors entering into, 
305, 306. 

Prohibition, status of, in United 
States, 321. 

Prophets, some modern, of social 
Christianity, 269; message of, 
270; mission of Hebrew, a de- 
mand for social justice, 274-276; 
similarity of conditions confront- 
ing ancient and modern, 277; 
wealth of equipment at disposal 
of modern, 277; characteristics 
of modern, 278,279; some dis- 
ciples from the schools of our 
modern, 296, 297. 

Protestantism, neglect in, of spirit- 
ual teaching of young, 103; mis- 
sionary enterprise, a common 
enthusiasm of, 214; gifts of, to 
missions, 215, 219; sentiment to- 
ward federation of, for missionary 
conquest, 220; interest of, in 
human welfare, 265; finding its 
true self in spirit of federation, 
312. 

Prussia, 105. 

Ptolemaic astronomy, 64. 

Racial feelings, necessity for a 

transformation of, 290. 
Rail, Dr. Harris Franklin, quoted, 

118. 
Rauschenbusch, Professor Walter, 

quoted, 134, 156, 308. 
Reason, the intellectual and social 

disturber of the ages, 57; conflict 

of, with conservatism, 61. 



362 



INDEX 



Reformation, relation of, to biblical 
criticism, 86; cited, 235. 

Reimarus, 14. 

Religion, relation of, to science, 72; 
separated from State, 101 ; status 
of, in the home, 103; Socialism 
antagonistic to, 174; philosophy- 
influenced by, 317; Christianity 
to become the universal and final, 
318. 

Religious education, lack of, in 
American schools, 104, 106; in 
Middle Ages, 105; in Germany, 
107, 108; lack of, in American 
State universities, 109-112; need 
of, cannot be met by Sunday 
school, 113; the great gravity of 
the situation, 114. 

Renaissance, 234; present-day re- 
vival of educational ideals, a 
Christian, 282. 

Renan, quoted, 13. 

Richmond, James, 214. 

Roman empire, status of woman 
in, 191. 

Rome, 183, 196. 

Roosevelt, 37. 

Ryan, Professor John Augustine, 
quoted, 156; debate with Mr. 
Hillquit cited, 172; quoted, 174. 

Sabatier, quoted, 76. 

Salvation Army, 323. 

Sanday, Professor, quoted, 93, 97. 

Savage, Marion Dutton, quoted, 
264. 

Schools, public, contribution of, to 
national life, 102; marked ad- 
vance in secular, but neglect of 
religious training in, 104; August 
Hermann Francke, the founder 
of, 105. 

Schweitzer, Albert, quoted, 7, 14, 
17. 



Science, contributions of, to biblical 
interpretation, 64; relation of, to 
truth, 69; achievements of, 70, 71 ; 
relation of, to religion, 72; an 
ally of Christianity, 73; service 
of, for world's betterment, 74fL; 
debt of, to individual toilers, 169; 
conquest of nature by, "252. 

Scotland, 93. 

^Selfishness, a great foe of social and 
moral progress, 138, 139; as evi- 
denced in capitalistic monopolies, 

140-143. 

Semler, 92. 

Seneca, quoted, 190, 196. 

Service, the true measure of great- 
ness, 240; Christ, our ideal in, 
241 ; call for, heard and heeded at 
seats of capital, 293; opportunity 
for, in various professions, 298; 
new ideals of, making resistless 
appeal to the rich and strong for, 
300. 

Shakespeare, quoted, 244; cited, 
253. 

Sidgwick, Henry, quoted, 63. 

Simm, "What Must the Church Do 
to Be Saved?" by, cited, 38. 

Sin, teaching of Church concerning, 
187. 

Smith, Robertson, 93. 

Smith, Dr. Samuel George, quoted, 
326. 

Socialism, interests of poor aligned 
with, 47; Dr. W. M. Clow on, 
156; Professor Walter Rauschen- 
busch on, 156; Professor John 
Augustine Ryan on, 156; organi- 
zation and growth of, 157; Morris 
Hillquit on, 158, 159, 171, 173; 
basic philosophy of, 1 59-1 61; 
program of, a maze of imprac- 
ticabilities, i62ff.; ideals of, ma- 
terialistic, 166, 172, 176; offers 



INDEX 



363 



no suitable reward for achieve- 
ment, 168; does not give fair 
encouragement to thrift, 169; 
H. G. Wells on, 170; blind to 
moral and spiritual needs of 
men, 172; Ramsey Macdonald 
on, 172; Keir Hardie on, 172; 
dominating minds of, overwhelm- 
ingly anti-Christian, 174; disre- 
gards benefit to individual of 
toil, 175; not a substitute for 
Christianity, 177. 

Soul, teaching of Church concern- 
ing, 188. 

Spahr, Charles B., 200. 

Speer, Dr. Robert E., quoted, 211. 

Strachan, Dr. James, "New Cyclo- 
pedia of Religion and Ethics," 
quoted, 96. 

Straus, 12, 92. 

Strong, Dr. Josiah, quoted, 24, 286; 
"Social Progress," "New Cyclo- 
pedia of Reform," cited, 26. 

Students' Volunteer Movement, 
work of, 219. 

Sunday school, enrollment of, 112, 
323; cannot meet the larger de- 
mands for religious education, 

113. 

Superstition, evolution of, 59; by 
many, intermingled with reli- 
gious faith, 60. 

Taxation of large fortunes, 160, 168. 
Taylor, Dr. Charles B., 33. 
Telemachus, 248. 
Temperance reform, growth of, 321, 

322. 
Tennyson, 77; quoted, 286. 
Theology, of future, to be aided by 

scientific knowledge, 75; need of 

a newly formulated, 123. 
Thought, evolution of superstitious, 

59; conservatism a controlling 



force governing human, 61; the 
need of original, 63; imperative 
need of rational rule over, 67; 
effect of irrational on religion, 68; 
science a clarifier of, 69; the 
changing order in, 121; the 
Church's need of modern scienti- 
fic, 122/123; new movement in 
Christian, 269. 

Timothy, early religious training of, 
104. 

Traditional thinking, power of, 59; 
two types of, 63, 65. 

Uhlhorn, Dr. Gerhard, quoted, 182. 

Universities, State, lack of provi- 
sion for religious training, an 
indictment against, no; small 
percentage of religious workers 
from, in. 

Volunteers of America, 323. 
Vulgate, Latin, 84. 

Walling, William English, quoted, 
174. 

Ward, Mrs. Humphry, "Richard 
Meynell" by, cited, 153. 

Warschauer, Dr., quoted, 286. 

Watt, James, 65, 66. 

Wealth, legitimacy and rights of 
private, 135; Christ's teachings 
concerning, 135, 137; consecra- 
tion of, to the common good, 
136, 292-294, 300; possession of, 
a great responsibility, 138, 193, 
201; despotism of selfish acquisi- 
tion and use of, 139; national, of 
America, 145, 162; undue in- 
fluence of, in Church, 153; views 
of Socialism concerning, 160; 
amount of, per capita, 162; need 
of private, for cultural institu- 
tions, 167; distribution of, in 



364 



INDEX 



United States, 200; rule of Mam- 
mon, 270, 271; highest satisfac- 
tion of, in call for moral service, 
295; man of, has great poten- 
tialities of service, 297. 

Welfare, of individual, never so 
sought and studied as now, 238; 
rising tide of interest in, invasive 
of Protestant Christianity, 265; 
present-day interest in, seeks to 
remove causes of need, 266. 

Welhausen, 92. 

Wells, H. G., "The Great State" 
by, quoted, 170. 

Wenner, Dr. George U., "Religious 
Education and the Public School" 
by, quoted, 105. 

Wesley, John, 121, 266. 

Westcott, 89. 

Whedon, Dr., quoted, 329. 

Whittier, quoted, 261. 

Wilberforce, 240. 

Williams, Aneurin, "Co-Partner- 
ship and Profit-Sharing" by, 
quoted, 307. 

Wilson, President, "The New Free- 
dom" by, quoted, 141, 143; 
"International Peace Plan" of, 

315. 
Wilson, Dr. Warren H., quoted, 22. 



Woman, ennobling influence of 
Christianity upon status of, 191, 
192. 

Woman's Foreign Missionary So- 
ciety, medical work of, 224. 

Worcester, Dr. Elwood, quoted, 56. 

Work necessary to highest attain- 
ments of character, 175. 

Working classes, alienation of, from 
Churches, 151, 203. 

World, landmarks in the spiritual 
redemption of, 234-236; the 
"Golden Rule" the final solution 
of misadjustments of, 242; su- 
preme problems confronting 
Christianity are world-problems, 
288-291; needs capitalists who 
are stewards for Kingdom of 
Christ, 295. 

World's Missionary Conference at 
Edinburgh, an expression of 
Christian unity, 310. 

Wrede, William, 14. 

Wurtemburg, 105, 107. 

Young Men's Christian Association, 
inestimable service rendered by, 

323- 
Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tion, 323. 



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